Range Tennis Club in Toowoomba grows from 12 members to 600 in six years

Membership at Queensland's oldest continuous tennis club has jumped nearly 5,000 per cent in the past six years.

But to be fair, the growth came off a pretty low base, says Toowoomba's Range Tennis club president Paul Mooney.

"In 2020 there were a dozen or so members," Mr Mooney said.

"This year we're just shy of 600, which has been phenomenal."

Mr Mooney said the club, founded in 1893, had bucked a trend in declining participation rates.

Its rapid growth defies the well-worn narrative of regional sports clubs that struggle from dwindling populations and lack of volunteers.

Mr Mooney said the key to changing the trajectory of the four-court club was to build a strong junior membership base by coordinating tournaments for kids.

"Kids now start off with coaching, they will hire courts, and then morph into playing tournaments and fixtures," Mr Mooney said.

There are now 300 juniors signed up to the club, compared to none in 2019.

Next generation takes the court

Patrick Freeman, 13, can be found smacking back forehands to the often-adult players at the other end of the court four times a week.

"There are a lot of kids around my age that play here," Patrick said.

"Over my Christmas holidays, I've seen so many new faces here who I've never seen before."

His mother, Annabel Freeman, joined the club as treasurer after seeing how much Patrick enjoyed playing.

"I thought I'd do what I could to keep the club going," Ms Freeman said.

Growth in membership

Range Tennis Club secretary Tony Brown, 84, said Toowoomba's tennis landscape had been in dire straits a decade ago.

Another Toowoomba tennis club Mr Brown played at folded due to a lack of members, so he transferred to the Range club in 2013.

"I came here and there were a whole 12 members — whoopee," he said.

"Where do you go with us oldies if you don't have a follow-up brigade with the parents of the children, and the children themselves to take [tennis] to the next generation?"

Surprisingly, he said it was the COVID-19 pandemic that helped to revive the club because it turned out tennis was the perfect sport to play while socially distanced.

Keeping overheads low

Mr Mooney, a former nationally ranked player, saw an opportunity for growth when he joined as the club president and coach in 2020.

"Toowoomba is Australia's second-largest inland city, and our tennis participation numbers were pretty low for a city that size," he said.

Toowoomba has a population of 173,304, according to the 2021 census.

Mr Mooney's expertise as a coach and his lifelong dedication to the sport attracted $60,000 in sponsorships from local businesses, which helped keep the cost of court hire and annual memberships low, to just $10 an hour and $35 a year respectively.

He said an arrangement with the Queensland government to lease the land for $1 per year was also a saviour.

'Think outside the box'

Community groups and sports clubs in regional and rural towns across the country struggle to retain members.

La Trobe University senior sports lecturer Pam Kappelides said what the Range club had accomplished was rare because fewer people were volunteering at clubs after the pandemic.

"It goes back to that ageing population and population decline in smaller towns, so the number of people available to support the clubs are not there," she said.

"The financial pressures for rural communities, often farming communities, means they're unable to prioritise sport."

She said the survival of regional sport clubs hinged on their ability to "think outside the box".

"Don't just think 'That's how it's always run,'" she said.

"Think about perhaps how the population is changing in their needs and what they want from the club."

Click here to read article