BLTC Junior Awards & Celebration Morning 2023

Ballymena Lawn Tennis Club welcomed our junior members and their parents to our annual junior awards morning.

With over 100 juniors and parents in attendance this was our biggest awards morning to date.

Our guest of honour was Irish Tennis Legend and Ballymena native, Tommy Crooks.

Tommy was a member of the Irish and Ulster Tennis team in the 50’s and is the only Ballymena man to have played at Wimbledon. To add to his glory, he was also on the Davis Cup team of 1956 to play Finland in Dublin. Tommy started playing tennis aged 14 at Ballymena Lawn Tennis Club and when 17 years old won the Ulster Junior Championship.

At the age of 22, he won his first cap and was swiftly elevated to no 4 in Ireland. His successes spanned a tennis career of 20 years ; Windsor, Ballycastle, Portrush, Cork, Omagh and The Boat Club, where in 1956, he beat the South African visitor D Black in the final.

As tennis players, good, bad and indifferent, we all dream of stepping out onto the lawns of Wimbledon. It is the greatest honour for any tennis player. In 1958 and in 1959, Tommy played in the mixed doubles with his playing partner June Anne Fitzpatrick.

Talking to the juniors, Tommy remembers those years as being…… “the truly great years. Reaching the third round of Wimbledon was the proudest moment of my tennis career. Those memories mean so much to me, I will never forget them”.

Our junior members and family listened in awe as Tommy reminisced about his tennis career - what an opportunity for them.

The morning was opened by Girls Captain Eleanor Ireland, followed by a speech made by the Boys Captain Ethan Sims - who talked about what Ballymena Lawn Tennis Club means to him.

Both Eleanor and Ethan are moving into the senior club next year and are the two longest serving juniors at the club. They have been with us now since the age of 5, 13 years and counting. They continue to do the club proud, with all their achievements.

Director of Coaching Barry Clarke conducted the proceedings with the help of Tommy and newly appointed club chairman Nicholas Cumming.

It was a spectacular morning as we celebrated the achievements of our juniors both on and off the court.

Throughout the morning we celebrated -

Club Championship Participants, with a specially designed BLTC Certificate.

Junior members who were recognised for their sportsmanship, competitive nature and dedication to training.

Junior Championship Winners and Runners Up (We held a record 19 events within our club championships in 2023, with 60 juniors entering).

External Tournament successes including the Belfast and District Leagues, NI Schools Cup and participating in the Ulster Tennis Tournament Calendar.

The wonderful work our volunteers do as part of the Northern Ireland Volunteer Now Impact Awards. Certificates were given out to juniors who received 50,100 and 200+ hours of volunteering within the junior club.

Conor McIhatton, who received the Volunteer of the year Award achieving 135 Hours since April 2023.

Josie McIlhatton, who was presented with a special recognition gift from the club for all her help as a parent volunteer. Josie helps tirelessly on Fridays and Saturdays with our blue ball and red ball players, alongside Barry. With her help, it has allowed us to add the 5-6pm (Fridays) and 1-2pm (Saturdays) sessions to club junior play.

Seth Knox who was presented with the BLTC Coaches Cup. This was for his representation of the club throughout Ulster, along with his professional attitude and dedication to training.

The success of our Serving Aces Project and presented juniors and their parents with prizes they won through the various events we held to fund the project.

Special thanks must go to -

Ballymena Academy for allowing us the use of the Sixth Form Centre to host this event. Also a massive thanks for the use of the 5 tennis courts throughout the entire year.

Galgorm Trophies who as always provide a first class service in making sure the trophies were engraved. They also helped us select our new shields sponsored by Ballymena PizzaParlour

Andy Dowsett’s System 9 for sponsoring all the Tennis 10s individual trophies and medals for another year. https://system-9.com/?

The Corner Bakery Coffee Shop for providing beautiful refreshments for our attendees. Their wonderful spread included tasty sandwiches and scones, along with delicious pastries. The tea and coffee was needed due to it being a bitterly cold day.

 BEN'S Ice Cream Studio for continuing to provide vouchers for our juniors who play their first official Ulster Tennis Tournament.

Jane Gribben, Community Engagement Manager from Volunteer Now & Volunteer Now Enterprises who ensure our volunteers got their certificates for all their hard work.

 Jim Kelso and Darren Crawford from Ballymena Guardian Newspaper who helped organise and take the photographs for our event, during a very busy Saturday morning for them.

Charlotte Neilly for designing the 2023 Poster.

Everyone who is part of the club are incredibly proud of how it continues to flourish and grow. We embrace our community tennis club ethos, and now proudly have 120 junior members.

We will continue looking at ways we can grow and develop the junior club over the coming years.

The Ballymena Guardian will
be uploading official pictures throughout the next two weeks, so keep a look out.