Phil Broom reports on how Belbroughton Tennis Club pulls in the crowds....
'There are not many clubs that can boast of 12,000 to 15,000 members of the public coming through their club over a weekend, but that’s what happened recently at Belbroughton Tennis Club. Okay, admittedly the majority were actually coming to see the ever popular Belbroughton Scarecrow Festival weekend, which has regularly attracted those sorts of numbers to this picturesque village for the last few years.
Last year we realised we were missing a trick and decided to open up our courts to the Scarecrow crowds this year, as they are situated right next to the main field. Our aim was to generate a bit of money but more importantly to entice in new members. Time will tell how successful the membership campaign worked, but what certainly worked was the addition of the life-size LTA mini-tennis character ‘Suzi’ who was a great draw for the children - all who were very keen to have a photo taken with the large orange headed character with her over-sized racket. This also gave me the opportunity to collar the parents and tell them about the free coaching we were running on the courts and that they should take advantage of possibly the only free activity in the whole event.
The other great asset was the LTA Tennis Factory which we positioned front-of-stage on court 1 to attract the kids to play. Zoe Ashman, our resident coach, was on hand to provide literature about coaching and membership fees as well as tirelessly running a day-long coaching programme.
We also took advantage of our new ball machine which was very kindly fully funded by Sports England. We called it the ‘Ball machine challenge’; at £1 a go you had to get 2 balls in the hoop and you could win up to a £10. Easier said than done! We only had one winner, but he must have spent £15 trying to do it!
We also had the serve speed challenge to measure how fast you could serve a ball. Again, a great one for competitive Dads. Although the big upset was the when one lady smashed in an absolute thumper and beat her husband. The walk of shame was certainly long and embarrassing for that chap as the rest of his family were very keen to cheer him off the court!
At one point we must have had about 60 kids and adults all swinging rackets and having a whale of a time.
To sum up, as this was the first time we have attempted anything like this, we soon realised we needed more helpers on the day, and to say we were all shattered after the event was an understatement! Roll on next year!'
