Judy Murray on her quest to bring tennis to the masses
Passing every obstacle, Judy Murray’s desire and passion to deliver tennis to children all over Scotland will never fade
SHE is back where she started. This is not only a good thing but, perhaps, the best of things. Judy Murray has travelled the globe, watching her boys conquer the world.
She has endured and enjoyed the ordeal of dancing live on television. She has advised the top professionals, in her guise as captain of the Great Britain Federation Cup team and has written a memoir shortlisted for awards.
But, in truth, from Melbourne to Milton Keynes, from Wimbledon to Wigton, she has never strayed far from Dunblane in terms of spirit and experience.
‘It’s right back to where I started,’ she says of the first event of the Judy Murray Foundation which takes place in Greenock tomorrow.
The ethos and aims of the foundation hark back to the days of more than two decades ago when Murray took her two sons to Dunblane Tennis Club. The lessons of those days have remained.
The boys went on to become world No 1s, Andy in singles and Jamie in doubles, winning a combined eight grand slams and leading Team GB to a Davis Cup title. Murray has been buoyed and uplifted from this experience but she has been informed by other moments, less spectacular but deeply educational.
‘We were out on the football pitches at one of the primary schools in Drumchapel,’ she says of a day with her Tennis on the Road programme that seeks to bring the sport to disadvantaged or rural areas. ‘And there was this wee boy… he was amazing.
‘We were all doing a volleying drill where the maximum hits is about ten. I had to stop him at 60 shots. He could concentrate, he was competitive, he had great control of the racket and he had never played before. I thought: “Wow”.’
She also knew the boy would be lost to tennis. ‘There is no infrastructure,’ she says. ‘It has always been infuriating for me the idea that tennis is just for people with money. We have had Jamie and Andy in the public eye in Scotland for so long. Yet so many still can’t access the sport because there aren’t enough public courts or enough people to learn from.’
This reality is the foundation of the Judy Murray Foundation and it leans on her experiences in Dunblane a quarter of a century ago.
‘I started by volunteering at the tennis club and now I am going into other communities to teach people — volunteers — how to get others started,’ she says.
‘Everything I experienced and everything I learned came out of the community. It came out of my parents first and then the kids and adults at the local club.
‘It is the power of bringing people in local areas together and helping each other.’
Murray believes that primary prodigy in Drumchapel may have been lost to football. She is sanguine about this because the foundation does not seek to create elite players or poach talents from other sports. It has a deeper purpose. It is a charity that wants to grow the sport, increase the number of coaches and bring more children out to play.
‘I believe in investing in people and working with communities, so the JMF will identify a number of projects in disadvantaged and rural areas of Scotland and build workforces within those areas over a three-year period,’ she says.
‘Not everyone has tennis courts or coaches or even the money to pay for facilities or sessions, so I will show teachers, parents, youth leaders and students how to deliver starter tennis to kids, teens and adults in whatever space they have available. If we grow the workforce to create a demand, then we can influence the building of courts that will be available to those communities.’
The first project revolves around the Rankin Park site in Greenock. The JMF will work there with Greenock Morton Community Trust, Inverclyde Leisure and Ardgowan and Fort Matilda tennis clubs and a soon to be built three-court indoor facility.
‘Going into an area like Greenock is perfect,’ she says. ‘It is a big area: two tennis clubs, a football club, two community trusts doing great work around sport and a new tennis development officer in position. We can help her to grow her programme by creating a workforce and running event.
‘Inverclyde Leisure has planning permission for three indoor tennis courts. Three schools are within walking distance. There is a will in the area to bring the game to kids. The drive is to make tennis part of peoples’ lives and to get families involved in sport.’
She adds: ‘The childhood obesity crisis in Scotland absolutely kills me. What an awful thing to be one of the top statistics in the world for.’
There is a serious purpose to the foundation but even the most fleeting experience of Judy Murray as a coach reinforces the impression that it will be based on fun. The Tennis on the Road programme, where she is accompanied around Scotland by a fellow coach in the peerless Kris Soutar, will be the template in terms of attitude and purpose. These sessions — from Drumchapel to the Borders — play out to the soundtrack of children’s laughter.
‘This is an opportunity to show a better, more fun way of life and lead to a healthier nation,’ says Murray, whose foundation has been driven by a board of experienced business people and is seeking both corporate sponsorship and grants.
‘This is for the long haul,’ she says. ‘It is not about going in for a day or so and making a noise.
‘It is about committing to the long term to establish a solid workforce and a network of events and places to play.’
With a strong board, a viable business plan and a strategy that
has been embraced already by potential sponsors and authorities, the foundation has made early, confident strides. It is fuelled by the Murray spirit.
‘I still have this huge passion for tennis and teaching,’ says Murray, who graduated from being a professional player, to national coach and now a campaigner for the game.
‘I have a huge passion for creating opportunities for young people in our country. I am lucky, I suppose, in that I never became institutionalised by bureaucracy of the politics of sport. I have gone back to where I started. This is voluntary, this is what I want to do.’
It brings back memories of those days when two boys found an outlet for their energies and the early refinement of their talent in a local tennis club in Dunblane.
‘They love the sport,’ she says. ‘They have never forgotten their roots and those roots are embedded in the club, the local community, and having a friendly, welcoming, fun environment to grow up in.
‘It was not as if they were always down at the club playing tennis. They were down there playing table tennis, having water-bomb fights or serving the hot dogs in the café. They were just part of the community and that is the way my family has always been.’
Andy has already started mentoring young players, most notably Aidan McHugh from Bearsden near Glasgow. Both sons are supportive of their mother’s latest initiative. ‘They want tennis to open up to more people. They also love the links with clubs such as Morton as they are both football fans,’ she says.
There is, too, another quiet but powerful example of the family links to tennis and the community. As Judy’s foundation launches in Greenock, as Andy continues his rehab from hip surgery on the court, as Jamie strives for a grand slam in Roland Garros, Shirley Erskine will be going about her duties this morning in Dunblane.
‘My mum still helps out in the café at the tennis club on a Saturday,’ says Murray. ‘She loves it.’
That love of tennis and the community has been passed on. It may yet prove to be contagious throughout Scotland.