TENNIS
Founded in 1860, Edgbaston Archery and Lawn Tennis Society (EA&LTS) is the oldest lawn tennis club in the world. It is a friendly, social club situated next to the picturesque setting of the Botanical Gardens, Birmingham. Robert Holland (Bob) is currently a Trustee and Historian, but has held numerous other titles during his time. We spoke over the phone to gain an insight into the rich history of the club and lawn tennis itself
up playing tennis and did not take it up again until the mid-1980s. “In 1987, I was approached by one of the Trustees of EA&LTS to see if I would stand as the ground secretary. I didn’t know enough about it, but there was also a vacancy for the honorary secretary (which essentially is the managing director) and my name was put forward. So, from 1988 until 2005, I served the club whilst also undertaking the Chairman position between 1991 and 1993. That led to some interesting meetings of me talking to myself, as both the honorary secretary, whilst wearing my chairman’s hat and vice versa.” Bob has also been involved with the grounds maintenance (in some form or
A
s a young lad, Bob Holland played tennis in Edgbaston, which is where his interest in the sport fi rst started. However, in the mid-1970s, he gave
another) right from the word go in 1987. “The groundsman at the time was Bob Cooper, who had a background of traditional training with the parks department and also had been an assistant groundsman working on cricket pitches. He fi rst joined the club in the 1970s and retired just four years ago. He undertook the maintenance of the six grass courts, four shale and the two fl oodlit artifi cial grass courts. He also did a lot of work on the pavilion maintenance, as he was pretty handy when it came to DIY. Following Bob’s retirement from the job as a full-time groundsman, he came back as a consultant. We now have an assistant who carries out all manual work whilst Bob directs.” Back to Bob Holland - who has studied and started to write about the entire history of the club and tennis in detail - however, the pandemic and his medical issues have slowed things down somewhat as he is
unable to visit the library. I was interested in fi nding out how it all began and what he has found out so far. He starts our conversation by telling me he will try and keep it brief, but that was not easy with such a rich history. “The club was fi rst formed in 1860 as the Edgbaston Archery Society; literally bows, arrows and targets in which both men and women were able to play. Our original ground was on Hall Hill Road, which was just down from the home of the landlords. In 1867, we moved to our current ground in Westbourne Road and, according to the minutes of meetings, we did this as various members said it was too far to go down the hill and they wanted grounds that were nearer to their houses. They were infl uential Birmingham people - for example, the Chance Glass founders; a dozen of them were members and the Elkington’s who were silver platers (who actually made the men’s and women’s singles Wimbledon trophies). These people lived in some style, in rather big houses, on what I call Edgbaston ridge - which is only about one hundred yards from the club, so you can see the reasoning behind it.”
“As it happened, the Botanical Gardens was in fi nancial diffi culty and needed to make more money. We did a deal with them for an acre of their land (which at the time was a tree nursery) at the back end of 1867. We carried on playing archery, but
PC December/January 2021
79
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116
