Shepparton Lawn Tennis Club milestone celebrated with book

By Jay Bryce

Mar 7, 2024

History makers and history capturers: Past club president John Starritt, past president Maurie Rowlands, Centenary Easter Book writer Geoff Allemand, past president Cheryl Cottrell, Centenary Easter Book writer Peter Matthews, past president Mal Thiel and current president Kevin Hicks. Photo by Rechelle Zammit

This year marks the 100th running of the Easter Tennis Tournament by the Shepparton Lawn Tennis Club, and in celebration of this milestone, the club has commissioned a book by local authors Peter Matthews and Geoff Allemand.

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For Mr Matthews, it’s a chance to chronicle a local event that has amassed thousands of participants across the years, bringing people from all over the country and sometimes beyond into the region.

“It’s important to capture history, which is fast disappearing across the Goulburn Valley,” he said.

“The first man to win the singles title was a Dookie player, Alan Rowlands, father of Maurie Rowlands, who would be well-known to many local people with an interest in sport.”

Mr Matthews said he had undertaken jobs similar to this, creating books that captured the history of many different local clubs and organisations, and all were interesting to him.

The Shepparton Lawn Tennis Club has been operating in some form or another since the 1880s.

By 1927 the Easter tournament events had become the Goulburn Valley Championships.

With the 2024 Easter tournament running from March 29 to April 1, and with hundreds of participants, this year’s competitions are set to continue the proud Easter tradition on the courts of the Shepparton Lawn Tennis Club.

Preparation of the book is well under way and it will detail all the winners over the decades since 1924, as well as many more stories within the chapters.