Grabbing the imagination of our children at an early age is crucial if we are to inspire them to achieve in either the arts, science or sports. The tennis world has sometimes been criticised for not making the sport available to children from all backgrounds. It’s a situation that Andy Murray’s mother, Judy Murray is keen to change. After all, Andy and Jamie Murray (both Wimbledon Champions) would be the first to tell you of their mother’s encouragement and coaching at a very early age.
Any sport is all about access to the facilities and equipment enabling children to quite frankly ‘have a go’. With this mantra firmly fixed as a route towards facilitating this initiative, Judy Murray decided that she wanted to actively do something about tennis at the grass root level in Scotland. ‘Tennis on the Road’ was about to be born, taking to the high roads and low roads around Scotland and bringing tennis to a whole new generation of kids. It would be an ambitious programme that would need the very best surface for the coaches and children to play on and one that could be assembled and disassembled easily as the ‘tour’ progressed through Scotland. The surface choice would be PowerGame from Sport Court ® which is a Gerflor owned company.
Spearheaded by Judy Murray, and supported by the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), the programme is about building a workforce across Scotland in order to give more adults and kids the chance to play and enjoy tennis. Featuring engaging and creative activities, ‘Tennis on the Road’ is tailored to appeal to parents, teachers, volunteers, students and sports developments teams. The programme focusses on how to deliver simple fun sessions with much of the content based on the types of games that Andy and Jamie Murray loved to play when they were children. ‘Tennis on the Road’ launched in October 2014 and has since delivered 27 roadshows and trained some 3,500 of a ‘workforce’. At the heart of the programme are the games Judy Murray enjoyed with Jamie and Andy when they were little. Judy and her coaching team will aim to give parents, coaches, teachers and volunteers the tools needed to get kids active and to help further kick-start and develop tennis in Scotland.
The safest outdoor court in the world. PowerGame from Sport Court ® features the lowest skin abrasion of virtually any outdoor court surface and is made of the highest quality materials and UV stabilisers to protect your investment. The patented Double-Tier shock absorbing grid and Lateral Forgiveness reduce joint strain and fatigue to help you play longer and more safely than ever. ‘Tennis on the Road’ has a large van which they keep all equipment in, driving it to remote or deprived areas, or areas that have very little existing tennis activity. They bring everything they need to deliver a session. A Sport Court ® PowerGame mini court is naturally the perfect addition to this.
At Saracen Primary School in the Possilpark area of Glasgow, ‘Wimbledon’ descended upon the school on Thursday 23rd June as this ‘training tour’ arrived just before the most illustrious tennis championships in the world got underway. They would benefit from playing on 11.4m x 6m of Sport Court ® PowerGame outdoor tiles in ‘Evergreen and ‘Purple’, which is of course is a perfect match to the Wimbledon colours.
Gerflor-owned Sport Court ® are the world’s largest court builder. The average distributor has been with Sport Court ® for 19 years and are chosen by the world’s top sporting organisations – NBA®, NCAA®, FIBA®, FIVB®, Youth Olympic Games® and several others. Sport Court ® are the only ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 14001:2004 certified sports flooring manufacturer in the United States and deliver a 15-year limited warranty.