Warm welcome for East Glos member at Yokohama International Tennis Community
In November 2023, East Glos became a member of the Association of Centenary Tennis Clubs (CTC). The CTC is an international organisation of tennis clubs that were founded over one hundred years ago with the aspiration of creating friendships through tennis. It includes several distinguished clubs synonymous with the earliest development of the game of lawn tennis.
A benefit for members of CTC clubs is the opportunity to arrange introductions to CTC member clubs overseas. Longstanding East Glos member David Barham recently took advantage of this opportunity. David takes up the story.
On a recent trip to Japan, I had the pleasure of visiting the Yokohama International Tennis Community, the first Asian member of the Centenary Club. It is located in Yamate in an area still known by its English name, the Bluff.
After two centuries of isolation, Japan re-established diplomatic and trading links with the broader world in 1859. By 1871, a British community was present in Yamate and engaged in shipping and commerce. British culture’s influence is still visible to this day, with buildings of both historical and architectural significance.
Located on a hill with vantage points and charming views of the harbour below and surrounded by a honeycomb of small streets and footpaths, the tennis club exudes the intimate charm of its idyllic location.
Stone brick paths lead down from the iconic entrance and monument commemorating the birthplace of tennis in Japan to a clubhouse which sits on a grass knoll. The lawns surrounding the clubhouse give the appearance of a partial amphitheatre, creating a perfect atmosphere for spectators of the two main courts.
On my arrival, Tatsuro Muraga, Club President, and Kinya Matsutani, Club Director, were there to meet me. Following the introductions, we exchanged books of our respective club histories. Andrea, our club chair, had penned a message of friendship on the inside cover, which had also been translated into Japanese. Hopefully, this will be the first of many copies of our club history to find a home in overseas clubs.
After tea and some pleasant conversation, I was given a tour of the club, which included the museum. I admired the many exhibits celebrating a club that has been at the heart of lawn tennis almost since its invention.
With the British community came pastimes and sports such as football and cricket. Records indicate that grass seeds and turf suitable for building tennis courts were imported from England.
As early as 1876, a form of tennis club is created. Just two years later, the Ladies Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club of Yokohama is founded, and this is officially recognised as the first tennis club in Japan. This is just six years after Harry Gem and Augurio Perera form a club In Leamington Spa, only four years after Walter Clopton Wingfield introduces his own version of tennis, Sphairistike, and just one year following the first championships at Wimbledon in 1877. Incidentally, this is also the year the first tennis club in America is founded.
This not only makes the Yokohama club the first in Japan but also one of the earliest in the world. The museum’s centrepiece is an original Sphairistike tennis box set, obtained by the club through auction. It was originally sold in Britain for £25. Other artefacts, such as wooden rackets and early tennis clothes, also make for an impressive display. But it is the prized collection of photos and documents that best gives life to the club’s fascinating past.
Snapshots from well over a century ago bring back a long-gone era. Victorians dressed in their Sunday best: long skirts with bustles, long-sleeve lace blouses with stiff collars, jackets, ties, and hats. Edwardians in pressed flannels, ironed shirts, and sports jackets transport us from one century into another.
In 1936, Bill Tilden and Ellsworth Vines, two immortals of the game, played an exhibition match against Hyotaro Sato and Jiro Yamagishi, two of Japan’s finest players of the time. This, though, would be the last glorious summer before the impending storm.
After an extensive tour of the museum and a tasty meal at the clubhouse restaurant, I was invited to play some tennis. Due to heavy early morning rain on the day of my visit, play had been cancelled for the day, so this opportunity was an unexpected surprise. Unbeknown to me, the club groundsman had been working extensively to make the main court playable.
At the same time Mr Matsutani had been busy phoning members. In response to his call, several started to arrive with their rackets. Naturally, my first reaction was excitement at the prospect of playing on a court which had been graced by Bill Tilden, Ellsworth Vines and Stan Smith, Wimbledon champions all, and at a club which was the cradle of tennis in Japan. But I was also humbled by the knowledge that the club had made this possible for my benefit, to make my visit memorable, which it most certainly was.
While enjoying the company of several club members and three delightful sets of tennis, I was reminded that rackets have been vigorously swung at Yamate Park for well over a century. While many of the sports clubs started by the foreign community in Yokohama have disappeared in the mists of time, this was a club which had triumphed through adversity, twice rising from the ashes: the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923 and the allied air raids of 1945. The club survived being declared an enemy national and the post-war occupation of its grounds.
Today, the club sits in its original intimate location, a venue at the heart of tennis since its creation. In four years’ time, the Yokohama club will celebrate its 150th anniversary and turn the corner into a new era. It is a symbol of change but also a club aware and proud of its place in the game’s history.
My visit concluded with tea and cake and a fond farewell. The kindness and generosity of spirit extended to me were unbelievably warm. I can only hope that my visit will create a link between two clubs with not dissimilar origins. It is also my sincerest hope that members of the Yokohama club can visit East Glos at some future time.
In conjunction with my visit to the Yokohama club, I was also able to visit the Yonex Flagship Showroom. For a sports enthusiast, it was a fascinating experience, but it was the Yonex history that interested me even more.
After surviving the horrors of the Pacific conflict, Minoru Yoneyama returned to his home near Niigata, northern Japan. In 1946, he founded the company that would become Yonex. Yoneyama believed it was possible to build a better world through sport and that sport could bring peace to our world.
Mention should also be made here of Juan Maria Tintoré. Following a distinguished career and sporting life, he became involved in an international effort to rebuild Sarajevo. One of the vehicles he used was tennis, which, In turn, became the catalyst for the CTC. Like Yoneyama, Tintoré also believed that sport could spread friendship and goodwill throughout the world and even heal the wounds of conflict.
I believe East Glos has moved onto a new plateau by joining the CTC. We have joined a global family of tennis clubs dedicated to spreading friendship through tennis. This is, hopefully, a journey we can all enjoy.
Postscript
Shortly before travelling to Yokohama, I expressed some anxiety to my host family in Japan about playing there. Having not hit a ball in the best part of three weeks, I was genuinely concerned that I might make a complete fool of myself. Within twenty-four hours of expressing these concerns, they had arranged a practice hit for me with a Mr Ida from a local club in Inazawa.
Mr Ida, as it turns out, is also a member of a taiko troupe (Japanese drums) called Hibiki. Over that weekend, I was invited to a performance at a local community centre. I was also able to try it out for myself. If sport and music are universal languages, then I was fortunate to have participated in both.
• If you’re an East Glos member and would like to visit any of the 78 CTC member clubs while travelling, there’s more information here on how to arrange this.