Public Places Robby’s lease is for the tennis and
basketball courts, so he and London Borough of Haringey (which carries out the maintenance) work in partnership to deliver the aims of the park. Born in Guyana (South America), 56 year-old Robby has spent most of his career working in education, having also run successful tennis schools in the UK and overseas. It was the death of a school colleague that prompted his career switch. “It just wasn’t that same without him, so it seemed like the right time to take on a new challenge,” he explains. “That was when I decided to contact the council, as I saw plenty of potential with Albert Road.” Initially, no funding could be sourced to get the tennis centre off the ground, so attentions switched to the café and the income potential that it offered. Strong bonds were created from the outset, with schools and community groups involved in the park’s development, to the position they’re in today, where local schools are able to use the sports facilities for free and, in turn, sports clubs at Albert Road can use school amenities for no charge.
Once the success of the venture became evident, the tennis centre was given a boost with a £300,000 cash injection by the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) in 2010, which enabled the construction of four hard courts - also designed to accommodate basketball.
The café-centred sports model is
growing fast in London, the rest of the UK and worldwide, with Australia now a leading exponent of it, thanks to a meeting between Robby and a Tennis Australia representative two years ago. “I met Robin O’Neal from Tennis Australia, who was keen to see what was making this project tick,” he tells me. “I’d had success and won awards in Australia for helping to make the sport more accessible, so he was keen to link up with me.”
The meeting brought the ‘eureka moment’ for O’Neal, who saw immediately the importance the café played in the success of the project and how, without it, the sporting facilities would not have the same level of impact. The Australian connection goes further still. On top of more traditional park sports, Aussie Rules football has become a regular fixture, with three teams now playing weekly fixtures at the Haringey site.
Albert Road has also played host to two amateur international matches. Not only is the popularity of the sport growing amongst users of the park, but the ground is fast becoming ‘the place’ to play the sport. “Frequently, visiting teams comment on the quality of the set-up here and we’re always being told that it’s the best venue in the capital for Aussie Rules,” Robby enthuses.
Last spring, Australia called once more, O’Neal inviting Robby to present at the Australian Open to a host of luminaries, including Kate Lundy, Australia’s Sports Minister.
The series of talks, presented to other coaches and managers the day before the opening of the event, saw Robby address the audience on issues of participation and on raising the profile of the sport amongst sections of the community that might not traditionally have access to it. The café-driven business model was hugely popular among attendees and his talk was greeted with a standing ovation. “The important points about what we are doing for tennis is that we’re opening it up to everyone,” he insists. “There’s no dress code, no basic standard required and we give out racquets and balls for free. We expect nothing in return, other than the facilities are respected, and the trust we’ve built has worked tremendously well, and virtually everyone makes use of the café.” The project is working too as a fresh focus for jobs. Robby employs five coaches and three full-time staff, whilst seasonal employment swells to as many as thirty-five in the busier summer months - many of them local young people. “Our philosophy is to capture the kids
and fire their interest in sport at a young age, so they grow up not thinking a certain type of sport in not for them, which has been a problem with tennis.”
“I wrote to the council thirteen years ago with the view to turn the run down park from disrepair into a community tennis centre”
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