Let me tell you why no one plays your middle class sport 
...
In my area called Ashfield we have two towns Kirkby-In-Ashfield & Sutton-In-Ashfield very close to together and in that area there are 3 places to play Tennis (2 in my town and 1 in sutton). I started playing Tennis when I was 15 doing it in the summer of 2002 and again in 2003 & 2004. However apart from a brief bit in 2007 I stopped playing but recently I wanted to pick the hobby up but despite having 3 places offering tennis with a total of around 20+ courts I can't play on a single one...
Kingsway Park AKA The Acre
This is where I began playing tennis for a year before playing the rest in Sutton at a place called Sutton Lawn but now despite having the park redone up by the council to lovely standards the 6 courts there are not for the public. All that money spent on the park and the tennis courts which are owned by the council are only used between May-July by the secondary school next to it for P.E lessons and trust me when I was at the school you barley got to play any tennis anyway during the lesson. The nets are not up on weekends so no tennis there.
Tichfield Park
This is also in Kirkby (Old Kirkby) and they have a few courts there with no nets up but the park workers will put them up if you ask for free. Thats great but only on WEEKDAYS and the weekends the tennis courts are not for use (Weekends are non job days so only time to play tennis WTF).
Sutton Lawn
This lovely park has 8 courts, which 6 of them are part of the local tennis club which is busy and you need to me a member of anyway most of the time to book a court but membership is a yearly fee of £50 which is awful since you still have to pay afterwards to rent out a court. Something like a shorter summer mebership would be better or a policy of members first but any free courts after that public can book (used to work like that). It has though 2 courts which WERE totally free and for public use with no booking needed so first come first serve. However now those 2 courts are being relaid in the middle of the summer ???
Surly the council would of started the work in the spring to be done by the summer season since Tennis is very popular between June-September around here. Well they did start the work but its overrun its estimated completion date and now they have left it for a bit before going back to finishing whenever. Also when done looks like you will have to pay to use a public court on a public park paid for by public taxpayer money. Now I don't mind paying a reasonable price for a nice length of court time BUT the council are anything but reasonable and the courts were fine before and everyone got a game so wtf did they relay them for anyway. Myself I would go down with friends at 8-9am on weekends in the summer and play till lunch when other people would arrive and if both courts were in use I was glad to stop playing and let them use the court.
So 3 Tennis places in 3 PUBLIC PARKS but no tennis allowed for the public on weekends, thats why LTA no one plays tennis
sorry for the long post (rant)
...In my area called Ashfield we have two towns Kirkby-In-Ashfield & Sutton-In-Ashfield very close to together and in that area there are 3 places to play Tennis (2 in my town and 1 in sutton). I started playing Tennis when I was 15 doing it in the summer of 2002 and again in 2003 & 2004. However apart from a brief bit in 2007 I stopped playing but recently I wanted to pick the hobby up but despite having 3 places offering tennis with a total of around 20+ courts I can't play on a single one...
Kingsway Park AKA The Acre
This is where I began playing tennis for a year before playing the rest in Sutton at a place called Sutton Lawn but now despite having the park redone up by the council to lovely standards the 6 courts there are not for the public. All that money spent on the park and the tennis courts which are owned by the council are only used between May-July by the secondary school next to it for P.E lessons and trust me when I was at the school you barley got to play any tennis anyway during the lesson. The nets are not up on weekends so no tennis there.
Tichfield Park
This is also in Kirkby (Old Kirkby) and they have a few courts there with no nets up but the park workers will put them up if you ask for free. Thats great but only on WEEKDAYS and the weekends the tennis courts are not for use (Weekends are non job days so only time to play tennis WTF).
Sutton Lawn
This lovely park has 8 courts, which 6 of them are part of the local tennis club which is busy and you need to me a member of anyway most of the time to book a court but membership is a yearly fee of £50 which is awful since you still have to pay afterwards to rent out a court. Something like a shorter summer mebership would be better or a policy of members first but any free courts after that public can book (used to work like that). It has though 2 courts which WERE totally free and for public use with no booking needed so first come first serve. However now those 2 courts are being relaid in the middle of the summer ???
Surly the council would of started the work in the spring to be done by the summer season since Tennis is very popular between June-September around here. Well they did start the work but its overrun its estimated completion date and now they have left it for a bit before going back to finishing whenever. Also when done looks like you will have to pay to use a public court on a public park paid for by public taxpayer money. Now I don't mind paying a reasonable price for a nice length of court time BUT the council are anything but reasonable and the courts were fine before and everyone got a game so wtf did they relay them for anyway. Myself I would go down with friends at 8-9am on weekends in the summer and play till lunch when other people would arrive and if both courts were in use I was glad to stop playing and let them use the court.
So 3 Tennis places in 3 PUBLIC PARKS but no tennis allowed for the public on weekends, thats why LTA no one plays tennis
sorry for the long post (rant)
