Kos to Cullercoats is smashing for Stu
COACH CASS DELIGHTED HE SWITCHED TO NORTH EAST
“IT IS not always like this,” Stuart Cass points out as the sun beams down from a cloud-less blue sky over the Collingwood Lawn Tennis Club one glorious evening in Tynemouth, writes ROB STEWART.
The resident head coach should know because he has been braving the Tyneside elements since swapping a sun-drenched Greek island for the North Sea coast 15 years ago last month - but he does not regret the move to colder climes one bit.
For Cass quit a coveted role as tennis manager at the Mark Warner Tennis Centre in Kos to head to a job on Tyneside.
He insists it was the best decision he ever made.
Cass said: “Leaving behind the sunshine and constantly being on court and the happy-smiley faces for the wind, the rain, the snow, the torrential gales of the North East coast might not sound like the best of moves but for me it was.
“For every cold, wet day when you see people wandering by the courts thinking ‘I am glad I am not in his shoes’ you always have lovely sunny days where people think I am a lucky so-and-so.
“I enjoy this more than any other I could think about doing.”
Grimsby-born Cass has helped both Collingwood and Cullercoats Tennis Clubs flourish – particularly the juniors - as their head coach.
The 43-year-old arrived in the North East in 2002 to take over as Tennis Development Officer for North Tyneside Council, going into schools encouraging kids to play the sport and generally promoting tennis across the borough,
That was a role he carried out for five years of distinguished public service – which earned him the Northumberland Lawn Tennis Association Regional Award.
He then went self-employed and started coaching at Virgin Active in Sunderland while also stepping up his work at Cullercoats, where he had already been hired as the coastal club’s head coach before branching out and taking Collingwood under his wing.
Cass has had an eventful time when it comes to sport, having started playing tennis because he was a “failed footballer” and taken up fencing before hitting it off with a tennis racket and going on to represent his county.
A spirit of adventure saw him up sticks at the age of 18 and jet across the Atlantic with a friend to try his luck on the tennis courts in the Land of the Brave.
After that road trip, he headed back to Blighty to study for a sports science degree at Brunel University before landing a plum job at the Bisham Abbey National Sports Centre in Buckinghamshire, running their club structure.
That coincided with the England football squad being based there as they prepared for France 98.
Work followed in the south of England before he headed to the Aegean and a three-year stint as tennis manager with Mark Warner Holidays, firstly on Limnos before then moving to the huge Kos complex with its 14 courts and eight coaches under him.
Despite the obvious attractions of life in the sun, Cass got itchy feet and ended up in North Tyneside. He added: “I was going through job adverts looking for something where I could use my degree a bit more rather than just coaching.
“I landed the North Tyneside job but then realised it was not quite what I wanted.”
He took his first steps toward invigorating tennis on the coast at Cullercoats Lawn Tennis Club in 2002 and membership soared at an unprecedented rate, rising from 50 to 155 junior members in a year.
Since then, Cass has – with just one break - worked with the Cullercoats committee to help the club go from strength to strength.
He had that spell at Virgin Active before the pull of the outdoors lured him back to North Tyneside on a full-time basis.
He said: “I love being on court coaching, having a bit of banter with the kids, seeing them improve.
“It is all all about the journey you are on together.
“I now know coaching is the only job for me.”
His junior teams at both clubs have enjoyed plenty of success and there are more teams there than anywhere else in the North East - 15 at Collingwood and 13 at Cullercoats, while there are seven and five teams respectively in the Northumberland and Durham League.