A tennis club in Bedford has been crowned national winner at the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) Tennis Awards.
Riverside Tennis Club’s No Barriers programme, led by Neil Frankel, scooped the LTA’s Disability Award. Neil was recognized for his, ‘sustained innovation during lockdown, responding positively to the Covid-19 pandemic’.
Neil has supported his members throughout lockdown and been a trailblazer for championing inclusion and excellent teamwork. The project recently made national and local headlines, with Neil appearing on BBC Radio 4, 5 Live and BBC Look East.
Read: Riverside Tennis Club in the national spotlight for disability sport provision
The award was announced by Justin Tomlinson MP, Minister for Disabled People, at a live-streamed ceremony hosted by Great Britain Davis Cup captain, Leon Smith.
Talking about the No Barriers project, Neil said: “We felt that there were a lot of people who were being missed off the radar in terms of sport and sport provision and we wanted to help by being at the forefront of changing that.
“We moved pretty quickly to online like the rest of the world and had charity groups that we work with set up Facebook groups meaning we were doing a number of sessions a week to support players with disabilities across the heavier lockdowns.”
He said that their groups were “absolutely delighted” that things were continuing in whichever way they could and that their online presence created a sense of community during a very difficult time.
“It’s really humbling to win an award at the LTA awards, there’s a lot of coaches who work on the programme at the club, it’s a real testament to how quickly we reacted over lockdown, and it makes us want to do more,” he said.
“We want to use this as a springboard to engage with more people, engage with more charities and just try and get more people playing the sport.”
The LTA Tennis Awards are now in their sixth year and celebrate the achievements and contributions of outstanding tennis volunteers, coaches, officials, venues and players across the country.
Neil and the Riverside Tennis Club programme was hand-picked as one of 16 national winners recognised at the awards ceremony last Thursday, which honoured individuals involved in tennis at grassroots, county, regional and national level.
In 2020, the programme at Riverside continued to offer activities to suit all abilities and backgrounds and recorded record participation figures within specific groups such as the visually impaired, learning disability and Down syndrome.
Neil’s dedication has helped catapult participation to new heights, embraced technological innovation in lockdown and fostered a wide-ranging support network to help the club’s disabled players.
No Barriers at Riverside forms part of the LTA’s national Open Court disability tennis programme, which is one of the largest of its kind across any sport and has helped a record number of disabled people get on court and enjoy the benefits of tennis.
Nominations were drawn from over 25,000 volunteers, nearly 5,000 coaches and 1,000 officials, 22,000 schools, nearly 3,000 clubs and over 9,000 LTA approved tournaments, with Neil recognised for his inspirational work in the Bedfordshire region.
To find out more information about the LTA Tennis Awards or for information on how to play, coach, volunteer or officiate in tennis, head to lta.org.uk.
