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How Tennis & Children Started

Coach Gary Stanford had been working for Surrey LTA and the Chris Lane Tennis Centre. In 1999 these two roles came to an end and Gary found himself looking for work. A local club was approached with the aim of implementing his ideas of a unique junior coaching program. The club did not want to commit to these ideas so He decided to set up his own tennis program. In the first year it was all about survival. Gary proceeded to visit local state schools for free to advertise his new tennis courses. Local schools and leisure centres had been approached for the hiring of tennis courts. After the 18 months Tennis & Children was teaching about 45 children a week. Today we are regularly teaching over a 100 children a week at Woking

THE PLANWorking for clubs was often so limiting as some committee members of clubs were unprofessional in their approach to tennis and unwilling to give up any control they had. The children that came to tennis clubs were usually those that could already play a little.  Gary's aim was to bring the younger children to tennis and especially those in state schools.

WHY CHOOSE TENNIS Tennis as it is one of the few hobbies they can play all their life, just for fun or on a more serious level, and a very social game. Boys and girls can play together, young against old, good against bad, indoors or outdoors, and all you need is one other person to play with, if not then a wall will do. Tennis is a very challenging game, helping children with confidence, and an ability to improve their learning capacity as tennis requires high technical skills and coordination. You can go to most towns in the country find a club and make friends. Tennis is a non contact sport and can be played even if you are not quick runner or very fit. You tend to find that usually only the most sporty children take up sports, you don't have to be sporty to play tennis, it can be played at a pace and level that's suited to you. Tennis can help give your child a positive focus, especially helpful during those teenage years. 

Families who have been on low incomes have signed their children onto our courses and over 80% of those are from state schools in the area.

Parents Spending to much money Many parents are spending thousands of pounds when pursuing tennis seriously. Children are having far to many individual lessons in their pursuit of  becoming a professional tennis player. I thought talent meant that most things come naturally. Children are usually just having a very expensive hit with a coach with a lot of information and noise thrown in, Its not that difficult to learn a forehand. The best coach any pupil can have , is to get out and play as much as you can with other fellow players. Tennis will probably always be more expensive than most other sports, but many parents think they can buy success, and this is usually the coaching industries fault.

How can tennis go to the kids Tennis has grown in popularity over the years. In the 80's few clubs had children taking coaching or many offering coaching. That has changed dramatically, many clubs have more than one coach and offer a program for kids. For tennis to develop more it has to go into state schools and look for talented children as well as offering tennis to the masses. Once a year we offer our services for free to state schools in the Woking area in order to find talent and to encourage children to take up group lessons. Group coaching has to be more widely available and improved. When I say improved I mean the coaches ability to teach a group of young children to rally with other children and hit the ball with correct style. Tennis courts in parks need to be free or at a minimal cost at least. This will allow  parents to go a play tennis with their children as much as they like as the Williams sisters did with their Father.

Why don't more children play tennis As a child I played football at school regularly, but if someone had given me the opportunity to play tennis I would of took it. The chance never came until I was 15 years of age. Tennis was not in the minds of the average family who sent their children to state school when I was a child. This has improved but still has a long way to go. When I was Surrey LTA Coach & Selector the majority of children playing for Surrey were from private schools, meaning that most children in Surrey are not playing tennis. Are the posh kids just better at tennis? of course not, they have just been given the opportunity to play. I know this because I teach small groups in private schools in school time, they have the facilities and children are often members of clubs.

There is a national over teaching of football to children at a young age, and many sports, including tennis lose many children because of this. The only people benefitting from this are the top football clubs who are trying to get the best young players before any other clubs do. They demand a lot from the children where eventually most get dropped.

Tennis is a game that needs a higher level of co-ordination and technique compared to other sports and children need professional instruction to learn well, unless they are very well co-ordinated. Most school P.E. teachers will gladly teach most sports except tennis, and if they do try it is very difficult for them to do so, due to the large number of children, facilities and lack of coaching knowledge from the teachers. I would even say that children can sometimes be put off tennis if they have been taught in schools, even if the teacher was a professional tennis coach. I have run tennis lessons in state schools where I had 30 children trying to play on a school playground or small indoor hall. It is so difficult to run and I can honestly say difficult to see any real improvement. The schools tick a box for tennis instruction and the LTA ticks a box for promoting tennis. Yes go into schools but don't try to run lessons in that way.