Kooyong Today Is Clearly One of the Great Clubs of the World and the Completed Works Offer Great Facilities for This and Future Generations
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THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE KOOYONG LAWN TENNIS CLUB INC. COURTSIDE 1 “Kooyong today is clearly one of the great clubs of the world and the Above: Des Hinsley, completed works offer great Chairman of the Building Development Committee, speaks after receiving his facilities for this and future generations” Distinguished Member Award. Right: Wayne and Caroline Arthurs at the official opening of the Clubhouse. Several years of planning and design, and construction and in doing so he With high quality tennis action, great followed by a year of solid work, acknowledged the excellent work of the competition and wonderful views to enjoy, culminated in an official opening of Building Development Committee. there was a strong reminder that Kooyong the renovated Kooyong Clubhouse on is the premier tennis club in the country. the 28th February 2010. “The combined contributions of our hard working group delivered the excellent Later in the day, the finals of the squash Splendid weather fittingly greeted results that are on display,” he said. Club Championships took place, the guests on arrival and a series of highlighting another of the sporting Clubhouse tours were conducted to “Kooyong, today, is clearly one of opportunities available for Members at showcase the new facilities and services. the great clubs of the world, and the Kooyong. The standard of the squash completed works offer great facilities for finals reminded everyone of the high Members, invited guests and dignitaries this and future generations”. levels of competition at this great Club. then gathered in the refurbished Kooyong Room and enjoyed drinks, At the completion of the opening, Many chose to stay on into the evening as well as food served from the newly activities moved to the bar and and enjoy dinner on the balconies and, completed functions kitchen. terraces where the finals of the Club as the sun set on a memorable day, Championships for tennis were viewed these Members would have been able President Ian Hill congratulated all from the enhanced vantage points. to contemplate the many ways they will involved in the design, development enjoy the Club in times to come. 2 COURTSIDE COURTSIDE 3 CONTENTS THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE KOO YONG LAWN TENNIS CLUB INC. COURT THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club Inc. THE KOOYONG LAWN TENNIS CLUB INC. 489 Glenferrie Road Kooyong VIC 3144 Kooyong’s Beyond 2010 project Phone: (03) 9822 3333 has come to fruition after years of Fax: (03) 9822 5248 Website: www.kooyong.com.au planning and hard work by the Club’s COURTSIDE 1 Email: [email protected] committee and management. 12 ABN: 17 177 846 072 KOOYONG NEWS Reg. No: A0039994S From the planning process to the unveiling markedly, and in that year 15 stalwarts met A sub-committee that included Norman with the purchase. Some wondered where all 3 The Official Opening at Young & Jackson’s pub, opposite Flinders Brookes investigated the low-lying land, the money would come from. Street railway station, and formed the Lawn which was prone to fl ooding from the Tennis Association of Victoria (LTAV). The adjacent Gardiner’s Creek. “Gardiner”, And, indeed, it was a struggle. Slowly, name would be synonymous one day with however, funds were raised by the sale of the project and the overwhelming Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club. Fraser of debentures and assorted forms of membership, including one that offered A few years earlier, the MCC had arranged permanent seating in a yet-to-be built stand. with the Warehousemen’s Cricket Club to Over the next decade and beyond, funds share the use of its spacious ground on would be raised by tournaments, by social St Kilda Road to accommodate cricket, functions, and by persuading members and baseball and football matches. Soon, tennis others to make donations. also was entrenched there, and the ground was renamed the Albert Ground (after Two costly fl oods, in 1923 and 1924, were 5 President's Message support of the Members, we now have a Queen Victoria’s late consort). What every sport needs if it is to trigger public imagination is a hero. In the early years of tennis, one emerged in the unlikely form of Norman Brookes, who lived just a lob or two from the Albert Ground. Nicknamed KOOYONG LAWN TENNIS CLUB The Wizard, Brookes was a son of a self- Clubhouse that Members can be proud of. made industrial tycoon who had arrived in Melbourne in 1852 as a penniless migrant. Despite his spare build and By Alan Trengove chronic gastric upsets, Norman was an outstanding left-handed ball-player, 7 A Message From The CEO Like many of today’s house hunters, the as adept at golf, cricket, football and COMMITTEE pioneers of tennis in Melbourne had diffi culty billiards as at tennis. fi nding a home of their own. His exploits were followed keenly The Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC) gave by sports-mad Victorians, who were a helping hand. It had a tennis section and elated when he won Wimbledon in built some of the early courts, including one 1907, the fi rst “foreigner” to do so. of asphalt at the Melbourne Cricket Ground He and New Zealander Tony Wilding, in 1878 who was studying law at Cambridge, This significant investment has also captured the Davis Cup, which Frenk Sedgman Ian Hill - President – a year after the fi rst Wimbledon. Brookes packed and brought home. heartbreaking and seriously delayed the work that needed to be done to convert The MCC also played a leading role in At the Albert Ground the following 8 The Project the swampy, mosquito-and-weed-infested year, the pair successfully defended organising Victorian tennis championships, paddock into a Garden of Eden. Another the Cup in a thrilling Challenge Round inter-colonial (later, interstate) matches and fl ood, in 1934, would be so huge that that went down to the wire. By now, at pennant competitions. Kooyong seemed better equipped to conduct the MCC’s suggestion, the LTAV was In those far-off days, tennis in Australia, a regatta than a tennis tournament. David Wilson - Vice-President paying a peppercorn rent for the lease guaranteed Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club as in England, more often resembled a of a strip of land at the northern rim But gradually, under the leadership genteel garden-party diversion rather than of the ground, where it laid eight grass of Brookes – LTAV president from the vigorous sport it is now. The game was courts and constructed a small pavilion. Sir Norman Brookes 1925 to 1937 – all the diffi culties were played with heavy wooden racquets and, up overcome. Courts were formed, shrubs Australasia’s continuing Davis Cup triumphs to 1891, with an uncovered rubber ball that incidentally, was not the creek’s original and trees planted, pathways installed, and a boosted public interest in tennis even players could dry with a hanky when it rained name. The local Aborigines, in the previous comfortable, £7,783 clubhouse constructed. Brian Capp - Vice-President in order to keep playing. further; so much so that the Albert Ground century, called it Kooyong Koot (meaning, 10 Kooyong Pictorial courts quickly proved inadequate for the “haunt of the wildfowl”). In 1836, John Essington Lewis, the legendary boss of continues to meet and exceed the Male players of that era wore white long LTAV’s 551 members, 36 affi liated clubs and Gardiner drove 400 head of cattle to industrial giant BHP, happened to play tennis trousers or knicker-bockers with brilliantly fi ve affi liated associations. Other sites were Kooyong from his property at Yass, in New regularly at Kooyong. He was co-opted to coloured elastic belts; stiff-collared white inspected, but were either unavailable or South Wales. After buying out his partners, the works committee and advised the club, shirts and tie; black stockings; skull caps; and unsuitable, and so the search was postponed he became sole owner of a cattle station free of charge, on the erection of a 5500- fl annel blazers either brightly striped or plain, until the end of the First World War. centred on Kooyong Koot, with his cottage seat, reinforced concrete stand. Over time with a badge pocket. Des Hinsley - Treasurer on a hill that became the site of Scotch the centre court stands would evolve into a Then, in 1919, an opportunity occurred to College. Gardiner prospered but left Women up to 1900 played chiefl y social horseshoe-shaped stadium famous around acquire 17 ½ acres in Glenferrie Road, close the property after surviving an attack tennis. They wore straw hats; white blouses; the world. expectations of its Members. to Kooyong railway station. The prominent by Aborigines. and long white skirts that almost touched the fi nancier and politician William L. Baillieu The opening of the stand in 1927 was the ground. Ladies were believed to be risking had bought the land for £175 an acre and What mostly concerned the LTAV sub- most signifi cant tennis event in Australia serious injury if they attempted to serve was prepared to let the LTAV have it at the committee was the repeated threat of fl ooding. between the two world wars. To celebrate 12 The Court Of Legends over-arm (or simply tried to run). same price. The amount came to £3080, on It estimated that it would cost £4000 to drain the occasion, the Australian championships top of which would eventually come the cost the ground and protect it from inundations. By 1892, however, the standard of play were allocated to Kooyong for the fi rst... of putting down courts, building a clubhouse A special general meeting was called and, on of both men and women had improved time, and they culminated in a classic men’s and stadium, and other works.