My first experience of tennis was in 1978 when watched Wimbledon on a black and white television in Tregony, Cornwall with my family. I have been told that I watched it; however I was 4 at the time and cannot remember that far back!
It did take me another 3 years before I completely got the bug; I started playing at the grand old age of 7 years old in Bristol at the same club where Jo Durie (Wimbledon Semi-Finalist) began her career. Sweat Bands & Chocolate are some of the most vivid memories I have when thinking back to the early days of Tennis. Every Summer Holiday I did a course at Kings LTC in Bristol with Denis Bendall (or Mr Bendall as everyone called him) where the prizes on offer were; coloured laces; chocolate bars; sweat bands for your wrist and head; and ball clips for the girls! They were fantastic times as a young player. I made some great friends then, whom I am pleased to say are still great friends today.
I played through the junior ranks being involved in county and regional training & matches. I had some fab times away going especially to Swanage with The South West Regional Team. I do not think we slept much with all the fooling around; however we all still worked very hard on court. I think things are somewhat different these days!
Things did change back then also when I was asked to join the first junior tennis trip abroad. We were going to play on Clay in Germany for 6 weeks! This sounded great, and indeed, it was. We had some great players on tour with us, and they included Lucie Ahl and David Loosemore. We trained like professionals, sometimes I think back now that we may have trained a little too much when were over there. The standard of the Europeans was so high, as it is today, but this did not put me off the game, in some ways I think it inspired me even more. Having said that when we got back I received my GCSE results and moved schools and things began to change. This started a new chapter for me.
I found a real love for rugby, which is still one of my great passions today. Tennis took a back seat for a while but not for very long. In the spring of 1991 I had the chance to take my ECA (Elementary Coaches Award) in a week long course at Loughborough University. I had two of the best Coach Education Tutors of their day in Anne Pankhurst (the then head of coach education in Great Britain) and Peter Warren, who had been my coach until the previous year. When I passed the course, my feelings for tennis were instantly re-ignited; my love for coaching had started!
I began my coaching career working as a self employed tennis coach at St Georges School in Bristol (now City Academy Bristol) where I gained valuable experience working with pupils who hadn’t played tennis before and some pupils who didn’t seem to want to play tennis!
1992 came along so it was off to University, where my time was evenly divided between studying, playing sport (tennis and rugby) and partying. I cannot remember which one of those was more fun! Still, I survived and Accountancy beckoned, so back to Bristol and the wonderful world of number-crunching!!! This engaged me for about 3-4 years; the most pleasant experience being I met my now wife, Rachael. A big thank you to A. Nisbet & Co. Ltd for that! 4 months before we were due to get married I returned home from work and told Rachael I was going to pack in Accountancy and become a Full-Time Tennis Coach. This was not the greatest news that Rachael heard!! We still got married though!!
I have had the opportunity to be around some of the most amazing tennis players, notably at Nick Bollettieri’s Tennis Academy in Florida USA. I have played on the next court to Peta Korda and Marcel Rios, whilst they were having a practice match. To my amazement they watched a little of my tennis!!!!!! My greatest memory from that day was when Nick Bollettieri himself came over and said ‘You are a player’. Trying not to scream out in jubilation, I just said calmly ‘Thank you’! These top players work incredibly hard on the practice court, which is something I always try to instil in my players. The harder they work the more they will enjoy themselves.
30 years on from my first experience of tennis, I still have an incredible love for the game and desire to improve other people’s tennis.
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