The Avenue Lawn Tennis Club in Loughton is celebrating it’s Centenary this year.
It has been established that tennis was first played on the present site in 1912 and as part of the celebrations last month the club held a special exhibition game of tennis involving some well known players. These included David Lloyd and John Paish who together reached the Wimbledon men’s doubles semi final in the 1970’s and both played Davis Cup tennis for GB. David did play socially at the Avenue in the 1960’s when he was a member at Westcliff LTC and his name is a national brand in David Lloyd Leisure.
The other two players were David Felgate and Tony Rogers who were both members of the Avenue in the 1970’s. David Felgate won the Avenue men’s singles when aged 14 and later turned professional before playing the ATP Challenger Tour winning many doubles titles and also made Grand Slam appearances at Wimbledon and Australia. He was coach to Tim Henman and is now coaching a young Croatian girl who already has a world ranking. Tony won the Avenue men’s singles from 1974 to 1977 before moving to the Redbridge Tennis Centre. Tony has played at County Level both representing Essex in the Mens Senior Teams and County Veterans Over 55’s and now plays at The Woodford Wells Club.
The game itself was evenly balanced at one set all and Lloyd and Paish narrowly beat Felgate and Rogers in a closely contested championship tie break. It provided very entertaining tennis for the spectators that numbered nearly 200 involving members past and present and many guests. Mike Matthews the Avenue’s professional tennis coach trained 10 ball boys and girls for the game and who are all junior members at the club that now number 120 children. The club has a thriving junior membership with coaching offered by Mike Matthews and his team of helpers.
The Avenue is the only tennis club in Loughton and 5 years ago spent nearly £250k refurbishing the whole complex involving resurfacing the four artificial grass courts, the laying of a junior mini court, new surround netting, floodlighting on one court and a complete refurbishment of the clubhouse. Funding came from the club’s own resources, some grants and an LTA interest free loan.
Pictured above left to right: Tony Rogers, David Felgate, John Paish and David Loyd
See more photographs