SAVE COURT THREE!

Who are we?

We are an LTA registered tennis club founded over 100 years ago. We want to expand our facilities to meet current demands.

During the pandemic lockdown it was made abundantly clear how beneficial outdoor exercise is.  In 2019 our membership was 48 seniors and 23 juniors but it currently stands at 114 seniors and 80 juniors.  This figure is constantly increasing.  

Men’s, Ladies’ and Junior teams compete in the Sussex leagues and we run many inclusive tournaments throughout the year.  We have a top level LTA Accredited+ coach for both junior and senior members.  Our junior numbers are particularly encouraging and we run an apprenticeship scheme for coaching.  We are hoping to establish a link with the local schools within the area to expand our apprenticeship scheme and run an LTA Junior Tennis Leaders Award.

Due to extreme pressure on court availability in 2023 we constructed a fourth hard court and installed floodlighting to extend the opportunity for working members to play through the winter months.  We also introduced an online court booking system.   We are hoping to improve and increase our facilities further to offer the whole community the chance to participate in important outdoor exercise by means of a pay to play scheme.

Crablands is the only tennis club outside of Chichester offering tennis facilities all year round at all hours to a community of 12,000 residents.  We have an excellent clubhouse with changing rooms,  which enables all members to enjoy the use of the bar, kitchen and an indoor sports hall for Pickleball, short tennis and table tennis. The club is entirely run by a team of volunteers and survives through the support of members’ fees and social and fundraising events and some of our volunteers were recognised in February at the 2024 LTA Tennis Sussex Awards.

Why are we crowdfunding?

To resurface our oldest court.

To introduce Walking Tennis for the less able and elderly.

To build School/club links.

To run a Junior Tennis leaders award, so more young people have access to Tennis.

To introduce a Pay and Play system so more of the community can play Tennis.

How we’ll spend the money raised

Resurface court three. 

Raise the fencing to enable Walking Tennis and less able players on the resurfaced court.

Train for, register and run an Amazon Prime Video LTA Youth Girls course, to get more girls into Tennis.

Train for, register and run a Junior Tennis Leaders award for young people.

Set up Club/school links.

Introduce a Pay and Play system, for more of the community to play Tennis.

Equipment for people wanting to try Tennis for the first time.

Community impact

Offering pay to play access to the whole community including offering reduced or free access to those who are financially disadvantaged.  

Investment in well-established technology will enable us to deliver this.

We also intend to both continue with our existing coaching  apprenticeship scheme for young players and to increase the number of apprentices to meet the planned increased membership.

The  skills gained from the apprenticeship scheme  have proved beneficial  for both future life and careers.

We would like to link with The Academy Selsey and run an LTA Junior Tennis Leaders Award, to give youngsters the opportunity to get into another strain of Tennis.

Alongside this we would like to run an Amazon Prime Video LTA Youth Girls Tennis course to introduce Tennis to girls who have never tried the sport. 

Crablands entered a 14U girls team in the LTA Youth and National League this summer. We would like to enter more teams next year.

We have introduced Pickle Ball (the fastest growing sport in North America) to the club which, because it is easier to learn to play initially than tennis, should encourage both the youth of  Selsey and the less mobile adult residents to take part. We would like to develop this further as it is popular.

The club hopes to introduce Walking tennis for the less able and elderly people in the community.

The above gives an indication of what we want to achieve in the short term. 

Our ambition is to offer tennis facilities and associated ball games to as many members of the community as is possible.

HOW OUR PROJECT WILL BE UNITED BY BIRMINGHAM 2022

Many of our members were lucky enough to attend the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham and all returned back  home enthused with the community spirit displayed by everyone involved from the bus drivers , stewards, parking attendants , food distributers and of course the athletes.

We would like to emulate this community spirit in our area and our club by providing outstanding and inclusive facilities as detailed above.

In so doing we will improve both the mental and physical health of our community and  increase peoples confidence, self esteem and overall well being.

The increase in tennis participation and the increased apprenticeship awards arising therefrom will we hope enable our area to both flourish and succeed.

Success for us is participation and what that brings.

We thank you for any support you can give to enable us to achieve our ambitions.

How you can play your part

There are four simple ways to help us reach our target, and make this project a reality.

1. Make a pledge. Don’t delay if you’re going to support us because momentum is key to our success!

2. Spread the word. Share our project on your social media pages and tell the world to get behind us! The more people we reach, the more support we will get.

3. Offer rewards. Get involved if you are a local business by donating things we can offer to our supporters. We will give you a shout out!

4. Fundraise for us. If you want to run your own fundraiser – maybe a sponsored activity or similar – use the 'contact project' button at the top of our page to let us know. Setting up your own page only takes a few minutes and you won’t need any bank details. Just a fun idea!