On the face of it Annabel Croft’s assessment of the state of British tennis was fundamentally different to that of Judy Murray when, during last week’s planning inquiry, making her case to build a new sportshub in the centre of Scotland.
Lined up to promote the laudable ‘Tennis for Kids’ initiative the former British number one naturally proclaimed it a massive success with considerable justification since, following its initial launch earlier this year when 10,000 free Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) sessions were made available, it can lay claim to having been over-subscribed, ultimately introducing 13,290 children aged between five and eight, to the sport.
That, she noted, fed off the excitement generated by last year’s Davis Cup win, as well as the individual successes of the Murray brothers.
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“The rest of the world looking in at this sport is going ‘What are you doing right?’” she asserted.
“You’ve got a twice Wimbledon champion, Olympic champion, a world number one in doubles, several junior Wimbledon or US Open champions who’ve now gone on tour.”
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She seemed, then, slightly surprised by the tone struck by the mother of the brothers who are at the forefront of that success when she saying last week: “When I was a junior tennis player in this area there were probably twice as many tennis clubs in Central district and way more people. In this golden era of tennis the sport is in decline and that is incredibly sad.”
Yet for all that Croft’s promotional role meant she was not only obliged but clearly inclined to be extremely upbeat in her ambassadorial role her overall perspective does not diverge that much from Judy Murray’s as indicated by her account of her own recent observation.
“We’re up against the computer age where you’re trying to get kids off their computers and tablets,” she noted.
“I think it’s more about the fact that it’s not that tennis is in decline, tennis is in a fantastic space, it’s the fact that children are being distracted by other things.
“I was saying earlier that I saw a kid walking along the other day with his racquet walking to a tennis club and I said to my husband ‘that’s really exciting, watching a kid walking to sport,’” she recounted.
“You feel as if that should have been the norm, but we’ve gone through a period of kids being engaged in all this Facebook and non-stop social media, so how sad that I was excited about seeing this kid walking down the street when I was in the car with his racquet going towards a club, but I thought ‘Ah, that’s a really good sign,’ because that’s what we want.”
In saying so Croft, like Murray, harks back to a very different time when she grew up as a member of what she describes as ‘an old-fashioned club’ where she would be dropped off and spend the whole day playing against all-comers, alternating that with ‘going along with my 50p’ to join group sessions in public parks.
“I think if we could get back to a bit more of that social aspect around playing tennis that is a real key to keeping kids involved to hopefully enjoy this sport for the rest of their lives,” the 50-year-old mother of three reckoned.
Where Murray is engaged at the coal-face, however, seeking to put in place the facilities required to make sport more accessible to those who have not previously engaged with at a time when 99 per cent of the Scottish population apparently has no involvement in tennis, Croft was expressing herself in the broader context of the efforts being made to get youngsters more active.
“It’s not going to go away all the tablet stuff but I think there will be a pull back to kids coming back to more sport and what we need is the parents to encourage it,” she said.
“That is the most important part of it because you need the parents to support it because the kids aren’t going to get there on their own.”
Which is precisely where the views of these women who have vast experience of this sport cross over because it is Murray’s belief that it essential to make sport more family friendly environments to newcomers than clubs, almost by definition, are able to generate that lies at the heart of her project.
Murray has recognised that it is all very well providing the sort of taster sessions that ‘Tennis for Kids’ offers and has provided her own version ‘Tennis on the Road’, which sees her load a van full of kit and travel all over Scotland promoting the sport, but she knows that with the best will in the world those traditional clubs in which she and Croft grew up can be relatively intimidating places for adults not brought up in the sport.
Her vision consequently involves creating facilities geared towards introducing people of all ages to the sport in the sort of continental-style sportshub that is increasingly recognised as a superior model, but also building a team of coaches who can engage in an out-reach programme across Scotland.
Once again there are clear parallels in what Croft is calling for.
“I was just interviewing one of the coaches who said how much fun it was to see the parents engaging with the kids, because actually it’s a very bonding time that,” she said.
“To me it’s about engaging with the parents and getting it together as a team family thing and then hopefully it can only be positive.”
For more Tennis for Kids, visit lta.org.uk/tennisforkids
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