Do you think tennis is a ' posh ' sport?

[sinklineandhook]

When you hear someone saying they play tennis, do you assume they're a bit well off / posh ? Whatever you want to call it.

We had a free outdoor tennis court near us in a park (midlands industrial town). We also had one tennis racket between four of us kids! Even school didn't have enough tennis rackets for a whole PE group to play tennis.

this was the 70s, so things like that were more expensive, but I'm pretty sure those barriers still exist. I walked past those tennis courts when visiting a few years ago, and there's grass growing through the pock-marked courts. Council doesn't seem to have the money to maintain them any more. Again I doubt that is uncommon.

Being good does involve a lot of coaching which works out expensive, so unless someone is mega talented and spotted and helped out financially, it is unlikely they will make it unless they are fairly well off.

I love tennis, it was the only sport I was any good at at school. We always played tennis in the summer and hockey in the winter, and I so looked forward to the summer term. As an adult I joined a tennis club and had tennis lessons (had to stop due to developing tennis elbow and having to have 6 months of physio), which was expensive but no more expensive than having a personal trainer at the gym.

I think as the years have gone by they've tried to make it more accessible to everyone. Judy Murray for instance has a charity that's objective is improving access to tennis for all.

Like any sport there's a cost to it, tennis shoes, the racquet, balls etc.

Cricket on the other hand is a posh man's sport for sure (Freddie Flintoff says as much in his Field of Dreams programme).

I've had a handful of lessons over the last decade. I just play as much as I can with as many different players as I can. I am never going to (and never was going to) win any competitions, but I am good enough to have a great game and not disgrace myself. You really don't need lessons. Though if you're very young and are offered cheap group lessons (many clubs do this) then you should certainly be encouraged. I'd be a better player if I had had lessons. But honestly I'm easily good enough to hold my own against most amateur players of my age (in both sexes) at my club.

I’d disagree that cricket is posh judging by our local youth teams ( and the quality of the sledging🤣), but that private school kids are over represented and playing at school gives them a bit of extra practice ( although that’s now not that relevant as school cricket is seasonal and club cricket is year round and some state secondaries here do play). However, I think the biggest barrier in cricket ( based on what I’ve seen in our county) is how opaque the pathway is. For parents who don’t play cricket themselves or don’t have time to figure it out, you can see why otherwise talented kids drop out.

Brings to mind the Frankie Boyle joke:
Kids, don't forget it's sailing tomorrow for PE, so don't forget to bring your yachts in.

I don't think the sport itself is 'posh' as such, its just that if you want to play it the chances are you have to join a private club as what few local public courts there are in this country are in a appalling state. You got to France or Spain public facilities are more ubiquitous and in excellent condition so more accessible.

Several boarding schools for girls have stables where they can take their horses with them each term. “ Put Rosie in the horse box; we’d better be getting you both back to school“ isn’t a mile away from the Boyle joke. 🤣

Yet riding more generally is not exclusively a posh set sport, although expensive; so the expense rule doesn’t always work.

In my area there is a diverse mix of people. I think that’s more common in cities but I’m sure that’s not true everywhere in every city by any means.

I think the other factor is what we mean by “playing” a sport. For my kids, I’m looking for exercise and fun out of sports activities. I have almost zero interest in the competitive aspect and generally try to avoid that as much as possible. My observation of parents whose kids go to private school is that they are almost temperamentally/culturally (?) obsessed with making everything as competitive as possible. I don’t really ‘get it’ myself.

Yes.

I went to private school and taking tennis lesson/competing was something that quite a few of the kids did. Same with going skiing...

I took lessons but it is not really something I ever enjoyed :).

Everywhere has poverty, some towns hide it better than others. On the surface my town is very up and coming, middle class, affluent,Tory MP (they say you could put a blue rosette on a donkey and it would get in), lots of expensive houses, surrounded by greenbelt, but scratch the surface and you will find poverty, food banks, homelessness, night shelters, drugs.

I thought lots of sports get very expensive to get to a good standard but a lot of the time you don’t need that level to enjoy it. So the tennis you can get enjoyment/something you can play for years on a lesson a week and pretty low cost but I know already My 8yo has no chance of getting onto a competitive pathway as in our county, if you’re not spotted by 8 you’ll never catch up. I’m fine with that as she’s not that good and just doing it for fun.

cricket is interesting. She really likes soft ball cricket, being outside etc. Has zero interest in hard ball which seems to be the point it would get expensive and will stop by the end of primary because of that. I suspect a lot of kids drop out with the transition to hard ball but it’s a shame as softball feels like something that would be much more fun and lower cost to play more just for fun.