The History of Oakleigh Tennis Club (so far).

Oakleigh Tennis Club – part of Melbourne’s rich history since 1879 and still going strong!

Items in BOLD relate directly to Oakleigh Tennis Club’s history. 

Other items detail interesting historical events of the area, and Melbourne in general.

1840
John McMillan, a squatter from Scotland, leased a 5 square mile pastoral run known as Scotchman’s Creek.

1853
The Parish of Mulgrave, as the area was first known, was surveyed and the first blocks of land were sold in Oakleigh in the same year.

1854
Early settler families in the area erected a ‘hut’ school made from saplings and mud with a bark roof (on a site near where the current Oakleigh Swimming Pool, Oakleigh Recreation Centre and Oakleigh Tennis Club now stand).  Permission was granted for the school to remain on the Crown lands where it had been built, but due to the primitive nature of the building, the school soon closed.

1857
The Oakleigh and Mulgrave Road District was proclaimed.

Due to highway robbery, sheep and cattle stealing in the area, a Police Station was established where the remains (two posts and some bark) of the old school hut stood.  The area was later gazetted as the Police Paddocks Reserve.

1871
The Shire of Oakleigh was proclaimed.

The land between McMillan Street (now Warrigal Road), Logie Street, Drummond Street and the Oakleigh Cemetery was “temporarily” reserved for recreational purposes, and became known as the Oakleigh Recreation Reserve.

1875
The Oakleigh State School (No. 1601) was opened in Logie Street.

1879
The Melbourne to Sale (via Oakleigh) railway line was opened.

The Oakleigh Ladies’ Tennis Club applied to build tennis courts in the Oakleigh Recreation Reserve, east of the new Oakleigh State School in Logie Street.  The Nelson family allowed use of their private court in Warrigal Road until earthen courts could be installed.

1884
The club had become well supported, and hosted Melbourne’s first mixed doubles match, played between the Oakleigh and Cheltenham Tennis Clubs.  At the time, the courts were said to be the best outside the city, a source of great pride for the women of the club.

A bazaar at the State School, opened by prominent local citizen William Looker (a real estate agent, Anglican lay preacher, Justice of the Peace, chairman of the Oakleigh Court bench and one of the Recreation Reserve’s three trustees), raised enough funds from flower stalls, embroidery, craft, and John Blackburn entertaining as a skull-reading phrenologist, for the club to consider building a pavilion or asphalting one of the two courts.

1891
The Borough of Oakleigh was proclaimed.

1892
Kooyong Tennis Club was established, 13 years after Oakleigh Tennis Club.

1894
Oakleigh’s players were among the first to compete when pennant competition commenced.

1897
The Victorian Football League held its first season, comprising teams from Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon, Fitzroy, Geelong, Melbourne, South Melbourne and St. Kilda, with Essendon winning the first VFL premiership.

1899
Surprisingly, a gun club or ‘sparrow’ club gained a permit to shoot from the Oakleigh Cricket Ground, situated on the south side of the tennis club.  One afternoon, the ladies from the Oakleigh Tennis Club were showered with falling gun pellets.  Soon after, the gun club was shooting from a new venue south of the railway!

1902
A ceremony was held to mark the opening of the newly asphalted courts, attended by over 100 people.  The club had spent hundreds of pounds on the courts and a club building for its members, which by this stage had grown to 37 women and 18 men.

A member of the Oakleigh Tennis Club, Miss L. Wilmoth, became the State Lawn Tennis Champion by defeating Miss Parr from South Australia 6-3, 6-4 in the final of the Ladies’ Singles Championship at the Warehouseman’s Cricket Ground (Albert Cricket Ground).

1906
Trustees of the Oakleigh Recreation Reserve gave permission to establish a bowling green at Drummond Street on land next to the tennis club at a rental of £2.2.0 per annum.  The Oakleigh Tennis Club was now situated between the school (on its west side), the cricket oval (on its south side) and the bowling green (on its east side).

1908
Oakleigh Football Club (playing on the adjacent football ground) joined the Metropolitan Association, and adopted the colours purple and gold, which subsequently became representative of the community and were displayed whenever and wherever civic pride counted.  Purple and gold were also adopted by the tennis club, and remain the official colours of the club today.

1924
The Town of Oakleigh was proclaimed.

1926
The City of Oakleigh was proclaimed.

1932
Oakleigh Tennis Club added another (third) court and a new pavilion, clad in weatherboard and fibreboard panels, which acted as a meeting and clubroom.

1977
The J.H. Hocking Sports Complex was opened on a portion of the old Police Paddocks Reserve.  It was named after the City’s Town Clerk from 1965 to 1977.

After almost a century in occupation at Logie Street, the Oakleigh Tennis Club relocated to a 7-court facility next to the J.H. Hocking Sports Complex, on the site of the old the Police Paddocks Reserve off Park Road.

Three of the original Logie Street tennis courts were retained for use by Oakleigh Primary School.

1979
The Waverley and District Tennis Association (W.D.T.A.) was formed – exactly 100 years since Oakleigh Tennis Club was formed.

1993
The sports complex was renamed the Oakleigh Recreation Centre.

Oakleigh Tennis Club appointed a new coach, David McNamara.

1994
The City of Monash was formed by merging a substantial portion of the former City of Oakleigh with the whole of the former City of Waverley.

2013
The original Oakleigh Tennis Club courts in Logie Street were still being used as multi-purpose artificial grass courts that form part of the Oakleigh Primary School.

Oakleigh Tennis Club had approximately 100 members.

Oakleigh Tennis Club won its 5th consecutive WDTA Executive Committee Premier Tennis Team Trophy for winning the highest Summer Senior Mixed Section – A1 Rubbers.

2014

Lights were installed on 4 of Oakleigh Tennis Club’s 7 courts, with the assistance of the Monash Council.

The cost of this project was about $80,000, which was paid for by an 80:20 split between the council and the club.

2016

Monash Council announced a $20 million expansion and refurbishment of the Oakleigh Recreation Centre, and showed proposed plans of the extension (on the eastern side of the existing building) to Oakleigh Tennis Club.  These plans would not have impacted Oakleigh Tennis Club.

However, although Oakleigh Tennis Club and the Oakleigh Recreation Centre were built at the same time (1977), there were no similar plans for a much-needed refurbishment of Oakleigh Tennis Club’s 40-year-old facility.

2017

Monash Council advised Oakleigh Tennis Club that for a number of reasons, the plans to extend Oakleigh Recreation Centre to the east of the existing building were unfeasible.  On May 11, they asked if Oakleigh Tennis Club would be prepared to surrender 3 of its 7 courts to allow for the expansion to be on the western side of the existing building, and showed Oakleigh Tennis Club 3 different proposals for an expanded Oakleigh Recreation Centre utilising the land where Oakleigh Tennis Club’s 3 northern courts stood.

Oakleigh Tennis Club rejected Monash Council’s request to surrender 3 of its 7 courts for the following reasons:

• It was unlikely that Oakleigh Tennis Club would have been able to continue operating while construction of the expanded Oakleigh Recreation Centre was in progress.
• It would have halved the number of competition matches that the club could stage.
• It would have reduced the number of courts available for the club’s members to use.
• As a result, many members would have chosen to leave the club.
• The livelihoods of our long-standing coaches, David, John-Paul, Scott and Laura McNamara (who also did great amounts of voluntary work to ensure the club’s smooth operation) would then be have been placed in jeopardy.
• The combination of the above effects would most probably have forced the club fold in the near future.
• The club had been successfully running since 1879 (almost 140 years), and was not prepared to fold.
• The designs for the expanded Oakleigh Recreation Centre proposed by council (utilising 3 of Oakleigh Tennis Club’s 7 courts) would have been a less-than-ideal solution, due to the presence of the remaining 4 courts and clubhouse.
• Had the proposed design gone ahead, the day-to-day running of both the tennis club and the Oakleigh Recreation Centre would have been made more difficult due to their close proximity.

Instead, Oakleigh Tennis Club proposed an entirely different solution that Monash Council had not previously considered, offering to relocate the tennis club completely, on the condition that Monash Council built a new tennis facility with at least 7 courts (preferably 8) for Oakleigh Tennis Club to move into before it surrendered the Park Road site.

Oakleigh Tennis Club’s reasons for proposing this solution were:

• It would provide the maximum area available for Oakleigh Recreation Centre’s expansion – a large rectangular block with 2 street frontages (Park Road and Bolch Place).
• It would allow for the best possible (uncompromised) design solution for the expanded Oakleigh Recreation Centre.
• It would save Monash Council the eventual cost of refurbishment of the 40-year-old Oakleigh Tennis Club facility.
• Unlike the Park Road tennis facility with en-tout-cas courts and halogen lighting, a new tennis facility with synthetic courts and LED lighting would be much more environmentally sustainable, with less maintenance required, courts not needing to be watered after each set and using much less electricity for lighting.

That evening, Oakleigh Tennis Club identified a potential relocation site – the southern end of Caloola Reserve in Atkinson Street, Oakleigh, which was just 300 metres from the Park Road site.  

The following day, Monash Council confirmed Caloola Reserve was a viable relocation site, and planning for the new tennis facility commenced.

After a series of successful discussions and meetings, Oakleigh and North Oakleigh Tennis Clubs agreed to merge at the new Caloola Reserve facility.  The sale of North Oakleigh Tennis Club’s former site (estimated at $5.4 - $5.5 million) would pay for the entire Caloola Reserve tennis facility to be built, and allow Monash Council to increase the budget for the Oakleigh Recreation Centre expansion by $3.3 million (to $23.3 million).

On November 20, representatives of Monash Council, Oakleigh Tennis Club and North Oakleigh Tennis Club signed a Heads Of Agreement, setting out the terms and conditions by which the clubs would relocate to the new tennis facility and surrender their leases for their previous sites, and the conditions that would be included in their new lease agreement.

2018

Construction of the new Caloola Reserve tennis facility began in March, and proceeded as follows:

• Pouring of the concrete slab commenced in May, and was completed by July.
• Installation of the court lighting and fencing posts started in June, and the fencing wire was installed by the end of August.
• Laying of the artificial grass surface began in October, and was completed in November.
• The nets were also installed in November.

On September 12, the Minister for Sport and Recreation, The Hon. John Eren visited Caloola Reserve and advised that Monash Council had been successful in its application for an $800,000 State Government grant to assist with the construction of the new pavilion. Oakleigh and North Oakleigh Tennis Clubs played key roles in helping to secure this grant, with each club providing a letter of support, and organising for further letters of support from the CEO of Tennis Victoria (Matthew Kennedy) and the CEO of Tennis Australia (Craig Tiley).

On October 22, at Tennis Victoria’s Champions Dinner, Oakleigh Tennis Club’s president (Donald Smith) was named a winner of Tennis Victoria’s Volunteer Achievement Award.  He was one of only three state finalists to be nominated for Tennis Australia’s Volunteer Achievement Award at the Newcombe Medal presentations on November 26.

In early December, Oakleigh Tennis Club’s head coach for the past 25 years (since 1993), David McNamara (also a life member of the club) decided it was time to retire.  The other McNamara Tennis coaches (Scott, John-Paul and Laura) were all now coaching or working elsewhere, so the search for a new coaching team began.  David remained on the committee and as one of the club’s two Vice-Presidents.

After an exhaustive search, in which Oakleigh Tennis Club received over 20 local, country, interstate and overseas applications, all of whom were invited to answer a club-specific 20-question survey, 6 applicants were short-listed, vetted by Tennis Victoria and interviewed by an Oakleigh Tennis Club sub-committee.   The Victorian Tennis Academy (VTA) were subsequently chosen to be Oakleigh Tennis Club’s new coaches from the start of 2019.

2019

On January 11, the Caloola Reserve tennis facility, with 8 artificial grass courts, low-pole LED lighting and an electronic Book-A-Court entry system was opened by the mayor of Monash.  At the time of opening, there was no clubhouse, toilets, court lighting, or even electricity.

However, there was keen community interest in the new facility, and encouraged by opening specials, a “Get Females Into Tennis” campaign and Open Day on January 26 (which our new VTA coaching team took a leading role in running), Oakleigh Tennis Club’s membership increased from 150 (with twice as many males as females) to over 500 (with equal numbers of males & females) in just 3 months.

In April, a temporary clubhouse (made by connecting 3 portable building sections together) was installed.

Mains power had not yet been connected, so electricity for the clubhouse and toilet pumps was initially provided by a diesel generator, but it had to be turned off at the end of each day, so a refrigerator could not yet be installed at the club.

On July 1, at a Tennis Victoria Community Forum, having been nominated by Oakleigh Tennis Club’s committee, our recently-retired head coach, David McNamara received Tennis Victoria’s Highly Commended Service Award, which recognises outstanding service to the sport of tennis in Victoria.   https://www.tennis.com.au/vic/news/2019/07/02/david-mcnamara-recognised-for-his-service-to-tennis

On July 2, mains power was connected at Caloola Reserve, providing electricity for the clubhouse, fridge, toilet pumps and court lighting.

2020

Construction of the new $3.583 million Caloola Reserve pavilion began in early February, and completion is expected before the end of the year.

The new pavilion will become the new clubhouse for Oakleigh Tennis Club, as well as being seasonally used by the local cricket and soccer clubs, who have been waiting many years for their dilapidated pavilion to be replaced.

 

The above history gratefully acknowledges the following sources:

“Taking its Place – A History of Oakleigh.”

(written by H.G. Gobbi, published by the Oakleigh & District historical Society), and available to purchase – from the Monash Federation Centre, 3 Atherton Road, Oakleigh on a Tuesday or Thursday at a cost of $35.

Available to loan – from the Monash Public Library Service (994.51 GOB).

“The Beginnings of Oakleigh and District – A Research into Early Oakleigh and District 1836 -1866”

(written by Arthur Goldsworthy)

Available to loan – from the Monash Public Library Service (994.511 GOL).