THE COMMITTEE
Tennis Gold Coast run weekly fixture competitions, played on many of the 28 wonderful clubs or facilities on the Gold Coast throughout the year. TGC also fill the calendar by running tournaments, inter school challenges, and special events throughout the year. TGC committee appoints an independent fixture and grading sub-committee who grade the nominated fixtures players (and teams) on a system based on their previous fixture/tournament results and current UTR rating. As a not-for-profit Incorporated Association, Tennis Gold Coast keeps an office in the upstairs area of the Queens Park Tennis Centre.
We thank our band of sponsors and invite any new potential sponsors to contact the office at (07) 5532 8566.
Mike Ford
PRESIDENT
Wayne Hawker
VICE PRESIDENT
John Dickson
SECRETARY
Stephan Kua
TREASURER
COMMITTEE MEMBERS: John Birrell, Makarand Parulkar, Gavin Vickers, Daryl Macklin
BACKGROUND AND HISTORY
Tennis Gold Coast held its 100th Annual General Meeting in 2014 making it one of the longest running sporting associations on the Gold Coast.
The ‘Logan and Albert Tennis Association’ was the first ‘official’ organisation formed in this area and was established in approximately 1911. In 1926, records state a meeting of this Association was held at Beenleigh, with the President at the time being RJ Webb along with committee members GA Jackman and MJ Sullivan.
In 1928, the Association met in Southport for the first time with RJ Webb as Patron and MJ Sullivan as President. In June 1928, due to a change of Shire boundaries of Southport, Nerang and Coomera, the Tennis Association then became the ‘Southport and District Tennis Association’.
In 1929, the first annual general meeting under the name of Southport and District Tennis Association was held with MJ Sullivan as President, SE Foreman as Secretary and GA Jackman as Treasurer.
The Association was later known as ‘South Coast & District Tennis Association’ and then with the official town change of name it became ‘Gold Coast & District Tennis Association’ and then more recently became known as ‘Tennis Gold Coast’.
Queens Park Tennis Centre was officially known as ‘Steve Foreman Memorial Courts’ in memory of Steve Foreman who was the Association Secretary from 1928 to 1950.
There were only four courts at Queens Park in 1948 with two clubs operating there, the ‘Wattles Tennis Club’ and the West End Tennis Club’. A few years later another four courts were added.
In 1954 and 1955, the Touring Professional Tennis Group, which was developed by Jack Kramer from the USA, played a number of Exhibition Matches at Court One at Queens Park. With wooden stands, about eight rows high being erected on all four sides of the court, the world’s best players at the time, Pancho Gonzales; Pancho Segura, Frank Sedgman and Ken McGregor were a part of this touring group. Money that was generated from those exhibition matches paid for the ‘Original’ Queens Park Clubhouse that is still in use today. The previous old small clubhouse was removed and is now a part of a house in Egerton Street in Southport.
In the days when tennis was not accessible on television, Queens Park played host to many exhibition matches with some of the top Australian and International players including the ‘Australian Davis Cup team in the late 1950’s’, consisting of Lew Hoad, Ken Rosewall, Neale Fraser an Ashley Cooper.
