Ever wondered how to set up an LGBTQ+ tennis group?

Look no further! Here are a few handy tips from Ryan Watson, the founder of South London Smashers, one of the most successful and fastest-growing LGBTQ+ tennis clubs in the United Kingdom.

START AT THE BEGINNING

Start small, have an idea (big dreams) of where you want the club to go, but remember you need to start at the beginning. When we first started, we were playing on two, maybe three courts a week, short 2-hour sessions for 8 to 12 people. Ideally, if you have a group of friends who play tennis, you can start with them.

WHERE TO PLAY?

Find a club or courts that have good availability and pitch the idea of running a social tennis session with them. It is a lot easier if you have the venue on board (this can be talking to local council if they run the courts). This will mean you can set up a regular booking, which results in sessions around which people can plan their time. Also, consider the cost of the venue to make it as affordable as possible.

HOW TO PLAY?

Doubles works best for social tennis. Choose a format that suits the facilities and time slots. If you get a permanent booking that is 3 hours or more, you could look at creating timed sets allowing you to have more players and substituting people in and out. If you only have the courts for two hours, you can limit the amount of players to the capacity of the courts. 

If you go with the first option, you can mix up the skills of the players, pairing better players with weaker players to give everyone a fair shot. Also, you can set up stronger matches too, depending on who is available to play.

In the second option, the way we run the sessions is with a timer: warm-up for 12 mins, serves for 3 mins, then around 15 mins for match-play. We have a timer that goes off after 22 mins, at which point players finish off the game they are on (“sudden death deuce”) . Then the winning pair move up a court and split partners, while the losing pair move down and split partners, ensuring that one never plays with the same partner twice in the session, keeping it all social.

HOW TO PROMOTE THE GROUP?

We have found using Meetup a huge advantage for setting up sessions and reaching our demographic. Meetup does cost money to run, but you can accept payments through there and control attendees list etc. Your club will also be promoted to people who have your keywords in their interests, helping you reach potential players you may never even know were out there.

COMMITTEE

There is a lot of work involved in running and organising a tennis group like this. In addition to the more obvious, regular tasks such as supplying balls and running the sessions, there is a great deal of administration as the group grows. I would highly recommend getting dedicated people willing to help from the start, in order to relieve the burden of it all. This would mean:

1. Someone to run the Meetup page - You will get a lot of inquiries from potential players, the sooner you can answer them, the better.

2. Someone in charge of finances - If you use Meetup you will need to set up a PayPal account, this will need to be attached to an email address. As soon as you can, get this set up so you can see where the money is going (PayPal do take a small transaction fee).

3. An Events planner- As your club potentially grows, you will want to build upon all the love people have for the club, by organising tournaments, road trips to other clubs and parties! It is good to get someone with good organisational skills to plan these events.

LESSONS / OPEN DAYS

As your club grows and you want to bring in more people, look into working with your venue and see if they will help you put on a coaching session with professional coaches. We have found this to be the best way to bring players into the club. Open days are another great introduction - when we run tournament days, we invite all members to come, even if they have not attended before, to meet players and have a hit on spare courts we have.

BE AS WELCOMING AS POSSIBLE

It may seem obvious, but for a lot of people, it is terrifying turning up for their first session. This could be for different reasons - they may not have played the sport before; they worry about the standard of play; or they may not have been open about their sexuality to many people. I keep a little Pride flag sticking out of a tube of balls, a designated meeting area before the session and I always promote that someone from the group will be there ten minutes before the session to welcome any newcomers. Then when they arrive, we make sure that we introduce ourselves and talk about the session and the club. Everything we do is to make it as friendly and welcoming as possible. This also mean encouraging friendly competition on court and limiting judgements or “coaching” of other players, unless they ask for it.

About Ryan and South London Smashers

I started the group after playing social tennis with another gay tennis group. There were a small group of us who wanted to play more locally, so we started playing together. To promote the sessions, we posted on Meetup in 2018 and, before we knew it, the group started to take off. I always had plans and hopes for the group to develop more, then after the first COVID-19 lockdown, we were offered permanent court times at King George’s Park, Tanner St, and National Tennis Centre; plus Burgess Park in the winter. We then negotiated drop-in coaching sessions, helping to boost our numbers. Now, we run 6-7 sessions a week catering for over 70 players. We run an annual league, with 4 divisions and 4 groups in each, culminating in a finals day, where all semi-finals and finals are played, in a big day of drinks and picnics. We also host two big parties a year, a trip to Spain for 30 of our players to train at the Rafa Nadal Academy and loads of other fun activities. Our Meetup group now boasts over 1200 members.

Contact

South London Smashers are listed in our club directory. If you need help or have any questions, please feel free to email Ryan at southlondonsmashers@gmail.com.