G
Guest
·I have to speak out here, maybe it's just in Britain, but I have to say that tennis will never really be a sport that appeals to the masses, like football.
It is an increasingly expensive sport. There are no public courts here that are mainatined well AT ALL. You have to pay for the properly maintained ones that are always associated with a club, hence the overblown court fees + membership. I manage to get to play tennis on a court for free because I am a student of a school which has asphalt courts.
But still... tennis will never be a sport that working class proletariats like myself will follow en masse. I'm glad I love the sport so much despite the fact daddy doesn't own a f**king yacht or earns enough money to buy a solid gold house (you know what I mean, quite clearly I'm exaggerating
)
I'll still be at Wimby this year (even though it does dent yer bank balance), but sadly not many working class people will be, as I saw in 2000, you can clearly see many people who go are middle class. It is also detrimental to British tennis as a whole that this snobbery continues so much. You never get kids coming out of an estate playing tennis and becoming a star. You get footballers coming from anywhere to becoming world stars because the game is available to everyone. Tennis is only available to the priveledged. Of course anyone can kick a ball around no matter how much the ball costs, but still, when evern you have got the equipment to play tennis at even the most basic level, you have to pay through the nose to keep it up.
It should not be that way.
My ambition is for a British kid, with a working class background to win a slam, or a tournament for that matter. It's a shame. Until then, our hopes will remain in a public schoolkid whose parents had enough money to build him a court in his back garden, and an ex-Canadian.
It is an increasingly expensive sport. There are no public courts here that are mainatined well AT ALL. You have to pay for the properly maintained ones that are always associated with a club, hence the overblown court fees + membership. I manage to get to play tennis on a court for free because I am a student of a school which has asphalt courts.
But still... tennis will never be a sport that working class proletariats like myself will follow en masse. I'm glad I love the sport so much despite the fact daddy doesn't own a f**king yacht or earns enough money to buy a solid gold house (you know what I mean, quite clearly I'm exaggerating
I'll still be at Wimby this year (even though it does dent yer bank balance), but sadly not many working class people will be, as I saw in 2000, you can clearly see many people who go are middle class. It is also detrimental to British tennis as a whole that this snobbery continues so much. You never get kids coming out of an estate playing tennis and becoming a star. You get footballers coming from anywhere to becoming world stars because the game is available to everyone. Tennis is only available to the priveledged. Of course anyone can kick a ball around no matter how much the ball costs, but still, when evern you have got the equipment to play tennis at even the most basic level, you have to pay through the nose to keep it up.
It should not be that way.
My ambition is for a British kid, with a working class background to win a slam, or a tournament for that matter. It's a shame. Until then, our hopes will remain in a public schoolkid whose parents had enough money to build him a court in his back garden, and an ex-Canadian.