Thorncliffe Tennis Club has an amazing history. Founded in the 1950s to bring tennis to the north of Sheffield, this community and volunteer-run club has been winning games, sets, matches and tournaments for decades.
It is home to Eric, who, at 92-years-of-age, is believed to be Sheffield's oldest player.
The club has been such a huge part of Eric's life, and the life of his long-term mixed doubles partner, Margaret, who joined in 1974.
In this short video, we hear from both Eric and Margaret, and young star Lewis, as they tell us how important this tennis "family" is to them and what they will be losing if they can't find the financial support.
It is home to Eric, who, at 92-years-of-age, is believed to be Sheffield's oldest player.
The club has been such a huge part of Eric's life, and the life of his long-term mixed doubles partner, Margaret, who joined in 1974.
In this short video, we hear from both Eric and Margaret, and young star Lewis, as they tell us how important this tennis "family" is to them and what they will be losing if they can't find the financial support.
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00:00 Well it has been a big part of my life when I was younger I actually played with Eric he was my first partner here playing in the teams and I played with different men in the mix and I played in the ladies teams but now it's purely social, purely for fun.
00:18 Mostly the older people that I play with now, obviously we don't work so we can play when everybody else is at work or supposed to be at work and it is part of my social life yes and I do enjoy meeting them and even sitting off and chatting.
00:36 Awesome. Right then Eric if you wouldn't mind tell us how long you've been with Thorncliffe Tennis Club?
00:42 Since 1953.
00:44 And you're one of the founding members I heard.
00:47 Yes.
00:49 How important is tennis as a game but also the club to you?
00:53 I love tennis yes, I've always enjoyed it, depending on the matches you know.
01:01 We're kind of coming into a little bit of a low stage, hence we're doing all of this crowdfunding. This is going to be, next year will be the first year we don't even enter a women's team. So within 10-12 years we've gone from being the best team in Sheffield to not being a team.
01:16 And it's getting a little bit more like that with the men's team, we've had to lose some men's teams, lose some mixed teams and partly that is down to the condition of the courts. We've had teams come here and complain about the conditions of the courts and refuse to play.
01:31 Which is just not very good for when we do want to be playing high level tennis because we've got some fantastic players here and we've had fantastic players over the years. We've had players go off to America to play and it's just maybe we're not getting that as much because the facilities just aren't as good as they once was.
01:47 The last few years have been pretty tricky. The courts are 8 years overdue, you're meant to do it every 10 years. And especially the top court which we're on now is very difficult to play on, it's not very enjoyable. It's slippy in the winter, even in the summer the ball doesn't bounce straight and if you're trying to play a high quality match because we're in some of the top divisions, it's just not really enjoyable and you sometimes feel a little bit guilty when you bring someone all the way across here and you're not giving them the best surface to play on.