Golden year for Angmering-on-Sea Lawn Tennis Club

IN A golden year for sport, an East Preston club is celebrating its own golden anniversary, proud of its past and looking to the future..

Angmering-on-Sea Lawn Tennis Club has carried on the long tradition of the sport in this coastal village, which dates back almost another half century to 1916 and the first records of the game being played there, at South Strand.

During the 1930s, top players including Bunny Austin took part in major tournaments on courts in Sea Road, near where the old Three Crowns pub used to stand.

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That legacy seems to have inspired the modern-day club, which has gone from strength to strength since it was founded 50 years ago this month, during a meeting at the village’s Conservative Hall,

The club is celebrating its golden jubilee with two special events. A reception was held at its Homelands Avenue clubhouse on Thursday, at which the guest of honour was the president of the Sussex Lawn Tennis Association, Nick Greenwood, and on Saturday, there will be an open day to which the public, as well as past and present members and other guests are invited.

Philip Olver, club chairman, said “We have a hugely successful and welcoming club thanks to the enthusiasm and resourcefulness of our founder members and the enormous amount of voluntary work carried out by members throughout the past five decades.

“We are also very grateful for previous sponsorship from Yeoman’s Honda and from our new sponsors Yeoman’s Peugeot”.

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Saturday’s events will include demonstration matches, with a 1960s game using wooden racquets and white balls. There will also be free coaching.

From those early beginnings in the 1960s, with about 25 members and two courts, the club has grown to a membership today of more than 400, playing on seven courts with a range of surfaces.

Two have the latest all-weather artificial clay surface, installed three years ago at a cost of £60,000, and opened by broadcaster Des Lynam, himself a member of the club.

With three licensed coaches and a performance coach, who provide a comprehensive training programme both at the club and through the Angmering Community Tennis Partnership, which each week provides coaching for about 200 children across this area, the club has demonstrated a strong commitment to the sport’s future development.

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In March, 2009, Angmering-on-Sea was awarded the LTA’s Tennis Clubmark, recognising excellent standards achieved in all aspects of club life.

Fittingly, in this Olympic year, the club’s jubilee president is herself an Olympian. Sheila Lerwell, who held the women’s high jump world record for almost three years, was the leading British athlete at the 1952 games in Helsinki winning a silver medal.

And with Andy Murray’s Olympic success to inspire them, and firm foundations at this progressive club, youngsters have every incentive to set their own gold standards in future.

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