TENNIS has been played in Moffat for centuries and the town has long hosted the South of Scotland Tennis Championships.
And now a new book chronicles the history of that competition and its impact locally.
Author David Dutton has spent three years researching the event, and its winners, dating back to the 1800s.
‘Game, Set and Championship’ is the result and it’s available now directly from the writer.
Setting the scene, he describes how, as a popular tourist destination, 19th century Moffat was full of activities for visitors, with croquet giving way to tennis by the mid to late 1870s.
And as tennis rose in popularity, Moffat positioned itself to build on that.
Dutton said: “The Moffat tournament, which included women’s events from its beginning, was one of the earliest tournaments in the history of the game.”
Although he struggles to exactly date its launch, due to conflicting evidence, the author confirms that in 1882 the tournament featured gents’ singles, ladies’ singles, gents’ doubles, ladies’ doubles and mixed doubles. This means it was ahead of Wimbledon in everything except the mens’ singles.
And he also reveals that Moffat not only hosted the South of Scotland contest, but for several years was also the venue for the Scottish Championships.
As well as a thorough history of the game itself, Dutton also offers biographies on well known players, especially those with a connection to Moffat.
He discusses sisters Ann and Lottie Dod, Richard Millar Watson, as well as tennis’ first celebrity players, the Renshaw twins, William and Ernest.
The author said: “In the history of tennis in Moffat, it was a golden age when the Beechgrove ground welcomed not just Wimbledon players, but several Wimbledon champions to it courts.”
These were the famous Doherty brothers, Harry Sibthorpe Barlow, Charlotte Cooper, Muriel Robb and Harold Mahony, among others.
After discussing the development of both the game and the Moffat tournament, Dutton finishes with a look at ‘recent times’, describing the ups and downs in both the weather, finances, facilities and numbers of registrations since the 1980s, as well as the very recent impact of covid.
Looking ahead to the future, he said: “The more we discover of the tournament’s long history, and of the struggles of earlier generations to keep it going in times of adversity, the more important it seems that past efforts should be honoured and renewed in the future.”
His book will appeal to tennis fans, as well as those with an interest in local history and Moffat residents themselves.
To order a copy, email [email protected] or call 01387 711893.
