Arron Woodward, a 19 year old level 2 tennis coach born and raised in Cheshire County displayed a love for tennis at a very early age, as shown in family films of himself when he was as young as four years old swinging a racket. Ever since tennis has been central to his life and his key goal as a coach is to inspire the same passion he has in the next generation of players.
This Cheshire based coach began his coaching journey as a volunteer at the age of thirteen by completing his tennis leader’s award. He spent the next few years assisting head coach Graham Mactaggart on a weekly basis at Hooton Tennis Club. During this time he played club level tennis, competing in the local leagues and driving himself to become a better coach and player. At the age of sixteen Arron successfully juggled his GCSE’s and completed his level 1 and 2 coaching awards.
With these qualifications Arron began taking on a more key role in the development of youngsters at Hooton and under the umbrella of the head coach began to take his own groups. From this, he was working with all standards and abilities starting from the youngsters enjoying this beautiful sport for the first time right the way up to the teenagers competing to play in local tournaments.
Deciding to take on more coaching responsibilities Arron became a part time coach at David Lloyd Cheshire Oaks whilst completing his A levels. Arron enjoyed this change of environment as it enabled him to develop his own coaching style and method s with a strong emphasis on the children having lots of fun but also developing at a significant rate.
At the beginning of 2016 the Head Coach at Hooton unfortunately decided to leave. Arron immediately put himself forward for the role as he personally knows all of the juniors at the club and knew that he could step up and not only help these juniors improve but also improve the coaching programme as a whole.
The first step in this new journey was applying to be part of the Davis Cup Legacy team, he could tell that this course would be invaluable to himself and the club, as not only did it help him to increase participation in the programme but it also allowed him to connect with other coaches in the online community who would provide guidance and advice when needed.
During the ‘tennis for kid’s course’ Arron’s enthusiasm and love for the game shone through and enabled all children and parents to enjoy the sessions and look for more opportunities to play the game. Arron remarks at the excitement he gets every time he sees a new player successfully manage to hit a stroke for the first time. Over the six week course he was personally very proud of the juniors who transitioned from having never hit a shot to being able to successfully rally.
Arron’s future plans are to continue his coaching pathway by completing his Level 3 coaching course while also providing a quality tennis experience for both children and adults of all standards.
