Sutton Churches Tennis Club has launched a fundraising drive to replace its 100-year-old clubhouse with a new sustainable, accessible pavilion, aiming to raise over £700,000. The club, which has grown from around 100 members in 2001 to 532 today, says the current building is "rickety, dilapidated" and "creaks under your feet," limiting its ability to serve its diverse membership and local community groups.
A Clubhouse Trapped in Time
The existing clubhouse, located off Gander Green Lane, retains an old-world charm with dark wooden panelling, club memorabilia, and a traditional peg-based rotation system where each member has personalised their own peg. However, parts of the wooden structure date back 100 years, and its age is starkly contrasted with the modern tennis courts that host "tennis-mad" members during the summer.
Despite its charm, members say the building is no longer fit for purpose. Honorary Secretary Andrew Foulkes described it as "a rickety, dilapidated, wooden building. The whole thing creaks under your feet. It's only being kept alive by our own patch and mend." Fellow member Jackie Halls told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), gesturing to holes in the floorboards and weeds coming through the ceiling, "At some point it is going to fall down."
A Community Hub at Risk
Andrew and Jackie believe the building is preventing Sutton Churches from fulfilling its ambitions as a fast-growing community club. The club has hundreds of members, from juniors in sports camps and SEN sessions to over-65s enjoying walking tennis. It prides itself on being cheap and accessible, with monthly memberships at £20 and six hours of free coaching for new starters with club coach Jake.
"People have this perception of tennis as being quite a clique and expensive pastime, but we are saying no, it's cheaper than the gym down the road," said Andrew. The club was formed during the 1976 heatwave when two teams from Sutton's Trinity and Baptist Churches joined forces. Since then, it has transformed from a traditional club where "everyone was in their whites" into an inclusive community hub.
Brenda Symes, who joined through walking tennis after her husband's death, said, "This club has turned my life around. I'm here so much, my kids now say we have to make an appointment for Mum." Memberships secretary Dominique Dohalle added, "We are all tennis mad here."
Fundraising for a Sustainable Future
According to Andrew, the current building is "empty 80 percent of the time" because it is "too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter." The lack of temperature control, accessible facilities, and cramped conditions limit the club's ability to expand its social, commercial, and community offering. The club recently had to turn away a local church group wanting to host meetings due to lack of space.
In response, the club has launched a fundraising drive, including an online page, to support the construction of a new clubhouse. The planned hybrid mass timber pavilion will include an enlarged clubroom, upgraded changing facilities, accessible toilets, and storage. The Sutton Council-approved designs, proposed by design studio RISE, prioritise environmental sustainability with an ultra-low-energy Passivhaus design.
"We want this to last for decades, we don't want the young members to have to go through this again," said Andrew. This is the club's third attempt to upgrade the clubhouse, and with funds expected to exceed £700,000, they are hoping for success with support from national lottery grants and local community fundraising. The club has already held shopping bag packing and local auctions over the summer. "We want to show we are going to work for this," Andrew added.
