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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 150 children a week.
THE PLAN
Working
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.
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