The best players in the north-west of England will be heading to Lancaster University from 18th July for the right to claim the title of north-west champion.
It’s all under the auspices of the indefatigable Elaine Shallcross, who wants to boost the number of events accessible to those in the north of the country while at the same time acknowledging that appropriate facilities are not evenly spread. Before the pandemic, she managed it on a smaller scale, and now she’s setting her sights higher.
“I thought if we could get the right facility somewhere central to our region with at least eight courts, which is what we needed, then I’d try and reinstate the tournament,” she explains. There will be competitions for ages 15+ and 50+ at every skill level, and the response has been huge.
“I just tried to mobilise all the north-west players to say we’re putting a tournament on in our region, let’s show the rest of the country that we can have a really good event up here, and that the support in the north-west for tournaments is good.”
That’s somewhat of an understatement; some of the competitions are already nearing capacity despite registration having been open for just over a week.
“Whoever wins this title becomes the north-west champion for the next 12 months.
“We’re putting on a pretty big event for our north-west players, and we’ll try and make that event quite special to them, and obviously we want this to become an annual event.”
Elaine is already speculating about the possibility of a North-West Open if there was a suitable host facility, and she is already booking courts for events to be held in 2027. Not only that, but she is the chair of England selectors. Having just hosted team trials in Halton, near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, she and her colleagues – including newly-appointed team captains Thaddea Lock and Richard Love – are currently tasked with recruiting coaches for the forthcoming European Championship.
“They need to be a good decision-maker. They need to have fluid management skills, because different athletes need different approaches; good motivation skills; good leader; calm under pressure; when you play in tournaments abroad, quite often you face some unique challenges, so you need to be a good problem-solver.
“Either international experience or regional experience would be useful, but there would be quality candidates with transferable skills from other sports. This is a fairly new arena for people to start to maybe build their career or their future. You need someone that will blend people together, be able to balance partnerships, bond the team and so on and so forth.”
As always, though, Elaine is quick to add her gratitude to everyone who’s shown an interest or been involved in any way.
“I want to thank everyone who has supported the team England process,” she says, “the applicants, and particularly the selection committee who have given their time and effort to what has been a very interesting but challenging process.”
