With tennis about to feature in the Olympic Games, I was pleased to learn that my home town of Bridge of Allan used to be the focal point for Scottish tennis and had an Olympic connection of its own.
In 1908, Stanley House School invited the Scottish Lawn Tennis Association to hold the national championships on its superb facilities which included eight courts. The offer was welcomed by the SLTA as previously its championships had been played in Moffat, which was considered too remote by many of the top players and had also been bedevilled by bad weather.
For five glorious years, the best players from Scotland and beyond converged on Bridge of Allan for a week each summer, including a number of international stars. In July 1908, for instance, the men’s singles and doubles titles were both won by the Canadian Robert Powell, who had been a Wimbledon semi-finalist and competed in the London Olympics the previous month. He is in this picture from 1909, sitting in the middle of the front row.
It was too good to last. The tournament of 1912 was marred by atrocious weather which peaked on the last day, when two of the finals had to be scratched. The following year the Scottish championships moved to Edinburgh, and with the demise of Stanley House after the First World War they have never returned.
In 1908, Stanley House School invited the Scottish Lawn Tennis Association to hold the national championships on its superb facilities which included eight courts. The offer was welcomed by the SLTA as previously its championships had been played in Moffat, which was considered too remote by many of the top players and had also been bedevilled by bad weather.
For five glorious years, the best players from Scotland and beyond converged on Bridge of Allan for a week each summer, including a number of international stars. In July 1908, for instance, the men’s singles and doubles titles were both won by the Canadian Robert Powell, who had been a Wimbledon semi-finalist and competed in the London Olympics the previous month. He is in this picture from 1909, sitting in the middle of the front row.
It was too good to last. The tournament of 1912 was marred by atrocious weather which peaked on the last day, when two of the finals had to be scratched. The following year the Scottish championships moved to Edinburgh, and with the demise of Stanley House after the First World War they have never returned.
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