Membership at Queensland’s oldest tennis club has jumped almost 5,000 per cent in the past six years.
But to be fair, the growth has started from a pretty low base, said Paul Mooney, president of Toowoomba’s Range Tennis Club.
“In 2020 there were about a dozen members,” Mr Mooney said.
“This year we’re at just under 600, which is phenomenal.”
Paul Mooney is the coach and club president of Range Tennis Club. (ABC Southern Qld: Grace Nakamura)
Mr Mooney said the club, founded in 1893, had weathered a trend of falling participation rates.
Its rapid growth defies the hackneyed discourse of regional sports clubs which struggle against the decline in population and the lack of volunteers.
New players sign up and pay for two hours of social tennis. (ABC Southern Qld: Grace Nakamura)
Mr Mooney said the key to changing the trajectory of the four-court club was building a strong junior membership base by coordinating tournaments for children.
“Kids now start out coaching, they rent out courts and then move into tournaments and meets,” Mr Mooney said.
There are now 300 juniors registered at the club, compared to none in 2019.
The Range Tennis Club now has 300 junior members. (ABC Southern Qld: Grace Nakamura)
The new generation enters the field
Patrick Freeman, 13, can be found hitting forehands to the often adult players at the other end of the pitch four times a week.
“There are a lot of kids my age playing here,” Patrick said.
Patrick Freeman is one of 300 juniors currently playing at Range Tennis Club. (ABC Southern Qld: Grace Nakamura)
“During my Christmas vacation, I saw so many new faces here that I had never seen before.”
His mother, Annabel Freeman, joined the club as treasurer after seeing how much Patrick loved playing.
“I thought I would do what I could to keep the club going,” Ms Freeman said.
“I don’t think you can overestimate the importance of (community clubs), especially those grassroots clubs that are happy to take kids of all abilities and help them grow.“
Patrick and Annabel Freeman are at the club several times a week for tennis practices and matches. (ABC Southern Qld: Grace Nakamura)
Growth in membership
Range Tennis Club secretary Tony Brown, 84, said Toowoomba’s tennis landscape was in dire straits a decade ago.
Another Toowoomba tennis club, Mr Brown, played due to a lack of members so it transferred to the Range Club in 2013.
Tony Brown has been secretary of the club for around a decade. (ABC Southern Qld: Grace Nakamura)
“I came here and there was a total of 12 members – whoopee,” he said.
“Where are you going with us, old people, if you don’t have a follow-up brigade with the parents of the children and the children themselves to bring (tennis) to the next generation?”
Surprisingly, he said it was the COVID-19 pandemic that helped revive the club, as it turned out that tennis was the ideal sport to play while maintaining social distancing.
Players fill the synthetic turf courts at the Range Tennis Club. (ABC Southern Qld: Grace Nakamura)
Keep overhead costs low
Mr. Mooney, a former nationally ranked player, saw an opportunity for growth when he joined the club as president and coach in 2020.
“Toowoomba is Australia’s second largest inland city and our tennis participation figures were quite low for a city of this size,” he said.
“We had a perfect storm just because of the size of the city and the lack of people playing tennis.“
Since the pandemic, more young families with children have joined the tennis club. (ABC Southern Qld: Grace Nakamura)
Toowoomba has a population of 173,304, according to the 2021 census.
Mr. Mooney’s coaching expertise and lifelong dedication to the sport attracted $60,000 in sponsorships from local businesses, which helped keep the cost of field rental and annual membership low, at just $10 an hour and $35 a year respectively.
He said a deal with the Queensland Government to lease the land for $1 a year was also a saviour.
Thursday evening is a social evening for club members. (ABC Southern Qld: Grace Nakamura)
“Get off the beaten track”
Community groups and sports clubs in regional and rural towns across the country have difficulty retaining their limbs.
Pam Kappelides, senior lecturer in sport at La Trobe University, said what the Range club had achieved was rare as fewer people were volunteering at clubs after the pandemic.
The social tennis season has started for 2026. (ABC Southern Qld: Grace Nakamura)
“This is due to the aging population and population decline in smaller towns, so the number of people available to support clubs is not there,” she said.
“The financial pressures faced by rural, often agricultural communities prevent them from prioritizing sport.”
She said the survival of regional sports clubs depended on their ability to “think outside the box”.
“Don’t just think, ‘This is how it always happens,’” she said.
“Maybe think about how the population is changing in their needs and what they want from the club.”
