Don Stephens

There would be very few people at Forrestfield Tennis Club, (FTC), who do not know Don Stephens. However, many members will not know of the significant contribution that Don has made to the club over forty years. Many also, will not know the successes that Don has had on the court in club championships. Hopefully, the following summary will in some small way rectify that.

Don was around ten years old when he started playing tennis as a junior at the Railways Tennis Club in Merredin.  His mother strongly encouraged him and his brother Greg to learn tennis because, unlike cricket and football, she believed it was a sport that you could play for the rest of your life. Don now realises how correct she was. He did, however, continue to play other sports such as football, (Australian Rules), cricket and also enjoyed swimming at the local pool.

In Merredin, Don enjoyed the competitive side of tennis. There were always strong junior players in Merredin and the surrounding towns and the competition was pretty fierce.  Big senior tournaments were held over Easter and other long weekends when almost the whole town would come to watch the tennis.

Sport in country towns in those days, 1950’s through to the 1980’s, played a big part in bringing the community together and participation rates for all sports was very high. While Don was very competitive and played a lot of tennis, the opposition was very strong, so he wasn’t as successful as might have hoped.

Don moved from Merredin to Perth for work in the 1970’s. He didn’t realise that there was a tennis club, in the area until he saw a photograph in the Kalamunda Reporter of the opening ceremony for the Forrestfield Tennis Club’s new clubhouse in 1980. He joined the club shortly after.

Don has been a tireless worker for FTC. During his years at FTC he has served on the committee for a total of twenty-eight years serving on the committee in a number of positions. These roles include:

President:                  7 years

Vice President:         3 years

Secretary:                  5 years

Club Captain:           6 years, including this current year

Junior Co-Ordinator: 7 years

On top of all the work Don has done on club committees, he is always to be seen at club busy bees, (along with wife Monica). After tennis on Saturday’s and Tuesday’s, while most people are socialising, he is always making sure that the nets are lowered, gates locked and the club is ready to be locked up when everyone leaves.

Don, along with Monica and the help of many others, also looked after the junior tennis on Saturday mornings. This was very successful. Monica would look after the registrations and Don, with his engaging persona, kept everything flowing, making sure that the kids not only learnt how to play tennis, but had fun along the way. It was tremendously well attended.

Most people would also know that while he enjoys the social side of tennis, he does have a competitive side to him. He used to be heavily involved in pennants and thoroughly enjoyed that competition. Nowadays, his preference is Tuesday and Saturday’s social tennis as the younger tennis players make their mark at the club. Never the less, he still has been a very successful competitor at FTC championships and has won the following:

Men’s Singles – five times

Men’s Doubles – fourteen times

Mixed Doubles – three times

This has given him 22 titles in all. This is probably why Don is very much a go to person when a pennant team is short of a player. Don will be the first to tell you however, that it takes him much longer to recover the next day after a night of competitive tennis pennant games.

While it has been a few years since Don last won men’s singles final at FTC, he gets great pleasure out of watching and playing against the current crop of talented new players to the club. He also remembers those good players from the past.  Don said that in his opinion, the best tennis players that he has seen at the club over the past 40 or so years, would be Arif, Afzal, Mark O’Donnell, Audrie Tucker and prior to them, Stephen Kulacz and Derek Heatherly.

Don has only ever played senior tennis at Forrestfield Tennis Club and has never considered going anywhere else. He is enjoying the resurgence in the number of members at the club and in particular the various ethnic groups that are now represented.  Don says that at this stage of his life, he would have to say the drinks with Monica and friends at the conclusion of social tennis on Saturday is now the most enjoyable part of his involvement with FTC and that he is very thankful that he took his mother’s advice all those years ago.  

For his many years of service to Forrestfield Tennis Club, Don was awarded life membership in 1995. He is a current committee member and continues to contribute to the club in many ways.

The following photos show Don his younger days playing tennis and coaching juniors at FTC.