PREFACE
Information on the early years of Brentwood Tennis Club is very limited, it being
a sub-section of Brentwood Cricket Club for all but four years in the 1880s, until
1955. Bruce Martin researched through the Cricket records when the two Clubs
became separate and managed to produce a brief history in 1955. That has been
used unchanged here - so, 50 years on, my thanks to him for preserving at least
some of the Club's history from those pre-war days before all trace was gone.
My thanks also to a number of Club members who searched through their
'archives' and made available old press cuttings and photographs.
From 1955 onwards, I have trawled through the Tennis Club minutes and tried
to log the more significant steps along the way to today's scene. I have stopped
at 2000 as a natural milestone, but the purchase of the County Ground freehold
from Essex County Council followed soon after - a step considered by most
members to be the most important in 120 years of sport at the County Ground.
Brian Wright
June 2003.
In turn I would like to thank Brian Wright for his fabulous efforts in publishing
this history originally in around 2003.
Even in the short time which has passed since then, things at the club have
moved on considerably and at some time in the near future I hope to be able
to fill in the gaps with the assistance of members of the club committees past
and present.
Technology has progressed and therefor I will easily be able to amend this work
and bring it up to date when I have the information which hopefully someone
will garner and write up from previous minutes. Do we have any volunteers?
Thanks to Mrs Barbara Powell, mother of Sandra,the present club secretary,
for access to her extensive collection of tennis club memorabilia and also to
Mrs Barbara Dolby for her contributions.
The scrapbook pages are designed to give an overall impression of the club
generally. The items are not necessarily in strict chronological order.
If anyone else has pictures, newspaper cuttings or other material which they
feel could add to this history please make contact and we will add them and
return the originals.
Peter Kurton
January 2014