Sussex is delighted to announce the local heroes who are honoured as part of the Aegon British Tennis Awards. Gordon Lambourn of Seaford & Blatchington LTC has been named the Volunteer of the Year for Sussex after giving over 30 years of service to the game. Other winners include Lyn Paterson of Brighton Parks who won the outstanding achievement award giving over 50 years to Tennis in the local Brighton community.
Young Volunteer of the year went to Preston Leaders of Preston LTC who have been working hard throughout the year, organising and assisting with many events within the club. The Urban Tennis Foundation won the award for Community Venue of the year for their great work in Uckfield. Bede’s School won the award for Education for their ongoing achievements and involvement in the game. The winner of the Disability Programme went to Sound Tennis who only started the programme 18 months and now have several venues for blind and partially sighted to play tennis, increasing participation. The winners received their awards and prizes at the Tennis Sussex County awards ceremony on Saturday 14th November at the Amex Stadium in Brighton. Storrington LTC are celebrating being awarded the best venue in Sussex for tennis, based on criteria such as coaching, opportunities to play and compete. They are all now in the running to be awarded a national award, which could see them collect a £5,000 facility grant and a visit from a tennis legend.
Nigel Matthews, winner of the Coach of the year, accepted his award with his baby son, Sebastian, in his arms and commented: “I haven’t been to these awards before but I’ll certainly be coming next year! What a great event – thank you Tennis Sussex. Thank you too for the nomination – our coaching team at Storrington is a great team to work with and this award is for them too.”
Anne Clark, Chair of Tennis Sussex commented: “We had 250, a record number of nominations – I’m amazed and so impressed with the scale, quality and variety of the entries. This demonstrates that tennis is thriving as a sport – there’s always more that can be done to encourage higher levels of participation but there are loads of good news stories to share, which everyone in Sussex should be proud of. The standard of the entries was really high and we’d like to congratulate all of the nominees and especially the winners for their achievements. The judges had a tough job to select winners due to the overwhelming contributions made at tennis venues across the county. It is heartening to award those who put so much effort behind offering great tennis opportunities for all in Sussex.”
The awards are a joint initiative between The Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), the Tennis Foundation, partner Aegon and 40 County/national tennis associations, including Sussex. The Awards recognise and champion the people who deliver tennis in communities across Great Britain.
Photo by Mick McCarron