The Game Changers
Sandi Procter: Serving up change in tennis leadership
As we head into Wimbledon, LTA President Sandi Procter talks to Sue Anstiss about female representation at the very top of tennis, why volunteers are essential to running of the sport across the country and how Padel and Pickleball could be key to bringing more women to tennis.
Sandi is President of the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) - and the most senior volunteer in British Tennis.
Thank you to Sport England who support The Game Changers Podcast with a National Lottery award.
Find out more about The Game Changers podcast here: https://www.fearlesswomen.co.uk/thegamechangers
Hosted by Sue Anstiss
Produced by Sam Walker, What Goes On Media
A Fearless Women production
As we head into Wimbledon, LTA President Sandi Procter talks to Sue Anstiss about female representation at the very top of tennis, why volunteers are essential to running of the sport across the country and how Padel and Pickleball could be key to bringing more women to tennis.
Sandi is President of the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) - and the most senior volunteer in British Tennis.
Thank you to Sport England who support The Game Changers Podcast with a National Lottery award.
Find out more about The Game Changers podcast here: https://www.fearlesswomen.co.uk/thegamechangers
Hosted by Sue Anstiss
Produced by Sam Walker, What Goes On Media
A Fearless Women production
Hello and welcome to the Game Changers. I'm Sue Anstiss, and this is the podcast where you'll hear from trailblazing women in sport who are knocking down barriers and challenging the status quo for women and girls everywhere. What can we learn from their journeys as we explore some of the key issues around equality in sport and beyond, I'd like to start with a very big thank you to our partners, sport England, who support the Game Changers and the Women's Sport Collective through a National Lottery Award. My guest today is Sandi Procter, president of the LTA, the National Governing Body for Tennis in Britain, and a board member of the European Tennis Federation and a board member of the European Tennis Federation. Sandi is the 24th president of the LTA appointed in 2023, having previously served as the LTA deputy president.
Sue Anstiss:Sandi is a former PE teacher, turned tennis coach, and was the manager of Bromley Tennis Centre, an early training venue for Emma Raducanu. Sandi has a real passion for junior tennis, having created the original Red, orange and Green Ball programme that was adopted by more than 150 countries around the world. She's also created the original LTA Youth Tennis Leaders Programme. Sandi has a long history of volunteering in tennis and has served on the LTA board since the beginning of 2017. So, Sandi, I wonder if I can start with your current position as President of the LTA. Can you tell us a little bit more about the role and what it entails? Oh, thanks, sue.
Sandi Procter:It's lovely to be here. Well, first, as you said, it's a voluntary role and I work alongside the CEO, scott Lloyd, and our chairman, lord Mervyn Davis. The biggest part of the role is that I lead a council of representatives from all over the counties and other member organisations of the LTA, so that's the big part of the role. I also represent the LTA at Tennis Europe and at the International Tennis Federation, the ITF. A lot of it is about going around and visiting counties, visiting clubs and venues and parks. I present a lot of awards and trophies and I make lots of speeches.
Sue Anstiss:Lots of handshaking and remembering names.
Sandi Procter:Lots of handshaking, yes, lots of difficulty remembering names.
Sue Anstiss:And how did you get to be appointed as president of the LTA?
Sandi Procter:Well, as you said, I was on a board to start with. You have to get nominated by members of the council, so I had to be a member of council first and I was the councillor for Kent. So other people encouraged me and they nominate and then that's followed by an interview process and I was first appointed deputy and then, three years later, I applied again to be president. And how long do you stay in the role? For Three years, and it's going too fast. You're nearly halfway through already.
Sue Anstiss:I know I'm horrified, and what have you loved most about it in that first 18 months?
Sandi Procter:Well, I mean, some would expect me to answer that question with. Well, I love the going on court for the trophy presentation party at Wimbledon finals. So most people would say that, and indeed that is awesome. I can't tell you, but it's not really what I love the most. What I love the most is actually the incredible people that I meet, and all the way from passionate, hardworking volunteers when I go on club visits, county visits, to the little talented kids that you just cannot believe how well they can play at age five, six and seven, and really all the way through to even the celebrities in the Royal Box who absolutely adore tennis. So I'm going to say it's about meeting people. But the bit I love the absolute most is presenting awards. We have great LTA awards that happen in the counties, then regions, then national, and my absolute favourite bit is presenting those awards to coaches, volunteers, officials, club people. Their stories are so inspiring. I love it. That's lovely.
Sue Anstiss:We're quite similar there, aren't we, I think, in terms of that love of people and what stories are so inspiring. I love it. That's lovely. We're quite similar there, aren't we, I think, in terms of that love of people and what people are doing. I will come back to talk a bit more about your work today, but if I can take you back a little bit to tell us about the young Sandy, so how was sport a part of your life growing up?
Sandi Procter:My parents weren't especially sporty. I mean, they loved, you know, a game of cricket on the beach and stuff. But my first love was football. I played football at primary school. I was in the school team but of course I wasn't officially allowed to be, and so I had my hair cut short and all the boys just played along with the deception, probably because they were rubbish at football and I was the only one that could score goals. So that was my first and I went off to grammar school and very unhappy girls only no football, but there were loads of other sports. So I quickly got into netball, lacrosse, tennis, swimming, trampolining, athletics, everything you can imagine. I was in every school team that you can possibly be and fit the time in for, and quite a few county junior teams as well. I was just an absolute sporty geek.
Sue Anstiss:And I believe you played table tennis as a junior through England Pathway.
Sandi Procter:Yeah, yeah, I did. In my teens I was talent spotted at a Butlins holiday camp. I love it. I was girl of the week and I went to the finals and I was runner up girl of the year to a girl who later became the British number one. So, yes, I moved up to play for the England junior team.
Sue Anstiss:So, yeah, that was, that was great and you clearly were a very sporty girl and I mentioned the instruction.
Sandi Procter:You went on to become a PE teacher, so was that a very natural progression at that time for someone that loved sport yeah, it was, and and the person I can thank for that was, in fact, my PE teacher, and I know from some of your podcasts just how important all of our PE teachers have been to us in sport. And it was my PE teacher that encouraged me to go to PE college and indeed persuaded my parents to let me, because it would have been very unusual for anybody in my family to have gone on to college. It was more like go out and get a job. So my PE teacher was the one that persuaded them. So, yeah, and it's nice, because that PE teacher thing I occasionally meet some of my students and they go you know what you changed my life and it's, I think, wow. So it's a sort of you know generation after generation thing that PE teachers can do. It's just great. And where?
Sue Anstiss:were you teaching? Where in the country were you teaching? When you did teach, I started off in the Ealing area.
Sandi Procter:I'm a lacrosse player so my teaching inevitably was going to head into private schools at the time. So I started off at Haberdasher's Ass in Ealing and then I went to. I had a couple of other jobs in this part, surreyway and then I ended up at Cromhurst in Croydon and it was great for lacrosse. Actually I must give a shout out to the fact I did play for England at lacrosse in my 20s.
Sue Anstiss:Just drop that in. Yeah, just drop that in.
Sandi Procter:And I was vice. I was captain of the England team, vice captain of the GB team and the captain of the GB team was the one and only Celia Brackenridge. Oh wow, and we were really great friends. Celia Brackenridge, oh wow, and we were really great friends. And I know how much she did later for women in sport and safeguarding and everything. So, yeah, it was nice.
Sue Anstiss:Do you know? I never met her and she's someone I've heard so much about and read about and you kind of think, oh, in a different world, you know decades on, what have you? I would have loved to have met her and known her. Yeah, she was great she was quite fearsome.
Sandi Procter:I wouldn't have liked to have been on some of the sides where she was trying to get things through, but, yeah, she was fantastic. We lost her way too early, so, um, yeah, I can't remember the rest of the question.
Sue Anstiss:Oh, no, no, no, it is in terms of teaching. So how did the transition then into tennis coaching happen?
Sandi Procter:Well, it was a bit accidental, if I'm honest. I met my husband playing tennis. He was the tennis player, not me. I played school tennis and his job in oil moved us up to Aberdeen, originally played tennis at a local club. There was no coach in Aberdeen anywhere. I mean, who can imagine that? Now Coaches are everywhere. So the parents at the club persuaded me to coach all their kids and one thing led to another. Before long. I mean, I was teaching as well up there, but I was running holiday programs and weekly classes and everything.
Sandi Procter:And then our next move was to Dubai. And, yeah, I carried on coaching there. I coached expats and locals and had some really interesting times doing that and I never looked back. I did teach PE once more in Cairo, but I was coaching tennis and squash there as well. And then when we got back to the UK, I just started my own coaching businesses. We were in Lincolnshire, aberdeen and then back to London and everywhere I went I ran my own coaching business and I specialized in little kids. So multi-activities. And this is where being a PE teacher helped enormously. I'm not a great tennis player, but I knew how to teach like just kids and sports.
Sue Anstiss:Yeah, that's interesting, isn't it? Because I was going to mention that I spoke to Judy Murray on the podcast and she kind of highlighted the challenges for female coaches in tennis. But her journey in is really similar to yours, isn't it? Being in an area they're not being coaches, being encouraged by the parents of other children to start doing more coaching. That's interesting, isn't it? Yeah?
Sandi Procter:she had a much tougher challenge than I did because I was at the sort of lower end of it all with little kids. Being a woman and being a PE teacher were a real help to me. She was very much at the upper end of it all with little kids. Being a woman and being a PE teacher were a real help to me. She was very much at the upper end of it because she was a very good player herself and she obviously then had some very talented children to coach. So she found it more difficult because every course she went on at the higher end of qualifications they were full of men and lack of respect and I've read her book and I know Judy pretty well and I know she had a really tough time. I'm thankful I did not have that same tough time down at grassroots level.
Sue Anstiss:And obviously it is so important that we see more females coaching in tennis. Do you see things are changing within that kind of ecosystem, in that, I guess, from when you were coaching even the younger children?
Sandi Procter:I don't know if they've changed enough. If I'm honest, I think it's like 21% worldwide coaches are women and we're better than that. But it isn't enough yet. At the LTA, we are doing quite a few initiatives around coaching, subsidizing courses for women at the lower end of the coaching qualifications In particular, something that's going well. All women coach qualification courses, level one, because the women don't want to arrive to a group of 16 and find that they're the only woman. They feel lack of confidence and they're embarrassed, and so we've got a lot. They feel lack of confidence and they're embarrassed, and so we've got quite a lot of women-only courses that are attracting more women at that basic level and then, hopefully, well, some of them are starting to move up the coaching qualifications from there on. So that's how we are making progress slowly.
Sue Anstiss:And we're seeing that across a lot of sports, aren't we, the UA for B licence coaching, putting courses on just for women and rugby? So it's good that you're doing that in tennis. It's funny, isn't it? Sometimes I feel we're almost a bit apologetic of needing to put on courses just for women, but it does feel completely different to walk into a room of 40 men when you're the only one, and especially in some of those male team sports where they may have had much more experience of playing as well, too.
Sandi Procter:We still probably have got more to do on the performance side, but we are doing so. We've got a mentoring scheme for women performance coaches and encouraging in particular those girls that have played a lot to a high standard. One or two of them have sort of been part of almost like a training program, an internship, to encourage them to actually move into coaching having played, because there is a thing about you do need to have a certain standard of play to coach at a higher level. So there are things going on. It's just quite slow. Oh, they do go and visit tournaments as a group and study professional players as well. So nice things going on, yeah, good stuff.
Sue Anstiss:You went on to manage Bromley Indoor Tennis Centre, which sounds like a very different role from teaching or coaching. So I'm interested to know how that came about. But did you need to change your approach to your manner, the way in which you work, to manage a facility like that?
Sandi Procter:Yes, I had already managed a coaching program at another club in Bromley, the Park Langley Club, and we had grown the coaching program there from around 120 to, wait for it, 2000 people a week, so using all the park courts, all the local school halls and everything. So I'd been there 10 years, so I'd managed a part of a club and managed coaches, which is, of course, one of the biggest challenges.
Sandi Procter:Sorry but I am one, so I'm allowed to say that. And then I went off to work for the LTA and then when I came back to Bromley then I had to manage the whole centre. So yeah, my approach was different because, first of all, I did not know how to manage a business, but I used my sort of knowledge of managing coaching teams to bring the team together, because that was the most important thing for me at Bromley to bring the team. You've got coaches and teenage reception staff are completely different groups of people, lot of sort of team gatherings and team networking sessions where I just tried to help them get to know each other and support each other a lot more.
Sandi Procter:And I had to sort of take the view that things like finances and everything else would look after themselves. Did they? Well, yes, luckily, we moved the program. I mean, I know how to get kids on a court and keep them there, but the price of coffee was not sort of in my skill set, but they did look after themselves and I was part of a local authority set up anyway. So I had that support mechanism and we moved the program from about 120 kids to 1500. And that speaks for itself If you've got more people on call enjoying and coming back for more and more and moving up. Then actually you worry about the financials less and Bromley is thriving now.
Sue Anstiss:Oh it's fantastic to hear, isn't it? And I believe Emma Raducanu played at the centre, I think, competitions and so on. So what's it like to witness that meteoric rise of a young player like that?
Sandi Procter:Well, I've known Emma since she was about five so, and she played in competitions that I organised. In fact, I took a video recording of her playing in the under eight county finals one year. I don't know where it is, it's probably on some random computer somewhere and it'll probably be worth something now. So she started training at Bromley when she was 10, and still does in fact. So I've sort of managed the coaches who have coached her. In fact, her current coach is a young man called Nick Cavaday, who I coached when he was little. That makes me feel a bit old.
Sue Anstiss:Indirectly, you're coaching her through coaching him. Yeah, sort of.
Sandi Procter:Yeah, there you go. But yeah, it was good, emma is a delightful girl, um, so I I hope she gets things sorted. I mean, that whole meteoric rise around the US Open was unbelievable and, very, very annoyingly, I wasn't allowed to be there. I could have been there in my deputy president status but we weren't allowed to travel and I thought that's so annoying. But, believe me, I and many other Bromley people were absolutely glued to every minute in wonder as she just kept winning through qualifying, yeah, one round after another after another. By the time she got to the final, you know, I knew she was going to win. I was all right then.
Sue Anstiss:I wasn't nervous and maybe she'll win again another uh, open major.
Sandi Procter:And then you'll uh yeah, be there for that one, yeah she's just played brilliantly in the Billie Jean King Cup and, wow, you know, she showed us what she can do.
Sue Anstiss:Yeah, absolutely so in 2023 you became president of the LTA and it's obviously I mentioned earlier, but it's like the most senior volunteer in tennis in the country. So how important are volunteers to the running of the sport from? We don't necessarily see that from the outside. As you said, people aren't aware of the, the voluntary roles. No.
Sandi Procter:I think in general we all underestimate the importance of volunteers if I'm, if I'm honest, and I think it's perhaps because we can't exactly measure what they do but they are at every level of tennis. For instance, they're in clubs and venues. So lots of committees and lots of people running activities and competitions and social events. There the gender split is about 50-50. So lots of women volunteers as well as men. And then we have event volunteers and these are the people who you don't realise.
Sandi Procter:That man, all the alleyways at the Nottingham tournament, the Eastbourne tournament, the Billie Jean King Cup and all of those events, they're all volunteers. And you know what? That's more women than men, and I know you. That's more women than men, right, right, and I know you're saying that anecdotally, I haven't counted them, but I think it's visible that it is. And then, of course, we've got our counties. We've got lots of volunteers in our counties running the committees, doing the admin, setting up county teams and doing things open. We've got an open court programme where we take tennis to people with disabilities and stuff like that. So yeah, lots and lots 25,000 we have all together in tennis, goodness. Again, anecdotally, because we only know the ones we know, I suspect it's more.
Sue Anstiss:Yeah, and is that more than average sports, do you think? Do you know? I don't ones, we know, I suspect it's more. Yeah, and is that more than average sports, do you think?
Sandi Procter:Do you know? I don't think I know. I mean, we are quite a professionally run sport as well, so the majority of our coaching workforce is probably now not volunteering, and a lot of our bigger clubs are professionally managed, supported by volunteers in many cases, are professionally managed, supported by volunteers in many cases. We're a combination of the two.
Sue Anstiss:Yeah, and it's good to hear about that gender split, you know being fairly equal there. I was going to move on, because you're obviously only the second woman to hold the very top position of LTA president. Do we feel that we're seeing more female representation at the top of the game? Is that changing as well?
Sandi Procter:Yeah, I think we are. But what I see around the volunteer workforce is that the women are doing a lot of the doing. So you know, we're very 50-50 out there in the venues and the counties but they're not so often in the senior positions. So only seven of our member organizations have got a female chair. Only 20 of our sort of 50 odd counselors are women. So they're not stepping up into those senior positions.
Sandi Procter:And yeah, I think some of the reasons are is that and I can speak from my own experience a little bit is I don't think we realise we can. You know, from my own experience I only stepped up to go on the board and then deputy president, because the first president of the LTA female was Cathy Sabin, wonderful woman, x xpe teacher, by the way. She encouraged me to do it. Yeah, and I don't think I would have thought of that in a million years if, if it just been left to myself and then others encouraged me because she did so.
Sandi Procter:I think this is up to us, because I think we don't realize we can do it and it's no good waiting all the time for somebody else to tell us we can. Yeah, although hopefully we can support each other. I mean, certainly, I'm doing that now and I'm sort of talent spotting amongst the, the women I meet and encouraging them to step up. But I think this is up to us. I think there could be more of us if we would just realize that we can do it how interesting Kate and I had exactly that conversation today about women on sports boards generally.
Sue Anstiss:but yeah, but just needing to invite them, to encourage them, to kind of reinforce it's of course it's an option for them, but sometimes just that, not stepping forward into that space, yeah, really interesting.
Sue Anstiss:And you mentioned, you also sit on the board now of the European Tennis Federation. So in terms of that gender parity or the aiming for that within Britain, what's it like internationally? Because I think of the 14 members of the ITF board, only two are women. I think I read that. So I guess why is that and is that a similar challenge you think that we see internationally?
Sandi Procter:yeah, well, the the tennis europe board elections were just in March and honestly, it was a revelation that four women got elected out of eight and even the two that were not elected. There were 17 candidates altogether and even the other two were quite close. So you could knock me down with a feather that that happened, especially given that the ITF elections back in September last year there were again about 19 candidates and only two women were elected out of 14. And there were some really good candidates not elected. But the ITF Advantage All Group got us all together, a whole lot of us, including all of those women that were and weren't elected, to try and wrestle with why. And the women who didn't get elected said they felt invisible because, easily, the majority of the voting there are 213 nations and by far the biggest majority of voters are men. Now I think it's because the women just didn't campaign enough, in the sense of talking to all the people. They sent stuff out, but I think to the men, some of these good women one particular woman from New Zealand would have been a wonderful board member and wasn't elected and she felt that they didn't know her.
Sandi Procter:So at this gathering that we had online, a number of us that were going forwards to Tennis Europe were on that, and so we decided to take a slightly different tack and we decided to get together and support each other. So, rather than go out there and only campaign for ourselves or individually, we went out there and campaigned for each other. Oh I love that. And we went and joined in every male conversation that we could find, not just to talk about me, but to talk about Sheila and Nicolina and Florence, and we talked about the others in our women's group, and I think that helped. I think that that made the guys realise that we were supporting each other and that the others were good as well. Yeah, it really I think it worked.
Sue Anstiss:I went to an ITF UK sports event recently. They talked about international federations and it's an area I don't know much about but it was fascinating, but about trying to increase the gender parity on those different boards and a lot of it that came up. They've done some research was around not being in the rooms in the bars at the event the day before because many of the women have caring requirements or weren't able to be there and maybe didn't feel confident hanging around in the bar till late at night with all the et cetera. Anyway, that was just a few examples of but therefore, exactly as you said, they weren't known. They haven't been around for many, many years and so completely more than capable kind of brilliant people but weren't getting voted on because they hadn't been in the places where some of the businesses almost done the night before before they got to council, which had been done in bars, have gone on and being there.
Sandi Procter:You may not want to and you may be shattered and want to go to bed, but you've got to just stay up and pretend to drink that drink that some guy has brought everybody around and you've got to just join in. And you know, I don't want to say one of the lads, because you just don't need to behave like that, but you do need to make yourself visible with them. And yeah, and I think, I think that's what we did what's your thinking on quotas on boards for that purpose?
Sandi Procter:almost to begin to address that balance well, tennis europe has a quota of two and itf has got a quota of two. So two women of absolute joke, isn't it? But it Okay. So it's four in another four years and then yeah, but yeah. It's not great, is it? No? But a quota does something to kickstart sport. England have had a quota for national governing bodies and at the LTA we've had four or five women on our board forever and they've been brilliant. But we are aware of the quota because you may not always have women ready and available. So I'm not sure I like quotas, but if it gets us kickstarted, I'm very happy about quotas.
Sue Anstiss:I think that's my view. That's exactly my view too. So, yeah, I'd like it not to be necessary, but while it is, it is. Yeah, you and I first met when I was lucky enough you approached me to talk to some of the women on the Inspire programme which you're running for female leaders at the LTA. So can you tell us a little bit more about that and the impact that it is having? Because it, you know, I managed to attend a couple of days amazing, amazing initiative you were great, oh, thanks a lot.
Sandi Procter:It was super. So how it all came about was indeed when Sport England still had a quota for us on the board and we knew that there was going to be a vacancy and likelihood is we should be choosing a woman for the place. So, in the first instance, I, as president, have a monthly meeting with our people director, vicky Williams, who's great, and she'd led an Inspire program for colleagues and she knew that I was on the ITF Advantage All program and I knew how much I'd learned from it. So we got together and talked about what they'd done and what I'd learned and said we should be doing this for our women volunteers and let's do the first group based on the intention of encouraging one of them to step forward to apply to the board at the end of the year. And we did and it worked and we had two of our group applied to join the board and one of them, bridie Amos, was appointed and Bridie is now running the Inspire cohort too.
Sandi Procter:For the next group. Now, the next group are because we've got to start building from underneath now. So this next group of 16 women from the county committees who are going to try and give them the confidence and the skills to step up and be chairman or councillors for their county and then we'll have more women on our council to then choose from to go to the board. So we've got to slowly, slowly build up the numbers and we've got to build up from the bottom. So it's been a great program and I've so enjoyed being part of it, just visibly seeing some of the women where you saw some of them present. You know these women started off saying, oh, I don't like presenting, I don't like making speeches. And two of them interviewed you when you came and ran a Q&A and then three of them next morning gave a presentation between them to our whole council and they said that they could never have imagined doing that 12 months previously. That's so powerful isn't it?
Sue Anstiss:Yeah, you talked about Sport England and that kind of parity or the beginning to move towards a quota on boards, and there's obviously much to celebrate on this front in recent years at the All England Tennis Club and who run the Wimbledon Championship. So I wonder if you can tell us about some of the incredible women that are involved on that organisation.
Sandi Procter:Well, first of all, I think it's probably important for listeners to know that the LTA doesn't run Wimbledon, which is a very common misperception. The All England Club does, but the LTA is in partnership with them and a number of us are on the championship committee. So their new chairman is their first ever woman, debbie Jevons, and she has got enormous experience in sports administration with the Olympics, with rugby, with football league so she was a very, very good candidate and she's going to be brilliant. It's early days and she's got so much on her plate all at once, never mind running one of the you know well, her team runs one of the biggest events in the world, but she's doing great. And the CEO, sally Bolton, is also a woman, also with a lot experience. Now she got quite a lot of her experience within the All England Club previously, so they are absolutely brilliant. Now here's the thing Do you know what might happen if all goes well this summer?
Sue Anstiss:I only know this because Sally told me recently and I was like, oh, it could be amazing.
Sandi Procter:So, yes, you tell her yeah, so we could be an all women presentation party um at the finals, if all goes well. Now all depends on whether the princess of wales is well. So if she's there, debbie the chair, me the lta president s the CEO and the new this year new head referee, tournament referee is Denise Parnell, the first ever woman in that position too could be historical?
Sue Anstiss:yeah, absolutely. And moving on to that, then, how important is it? You do we see more of these female umpires and officials at those big tournaments like Wimbledon, because it is such a global spectacle for people to see, isn't it?
Sandi Procter:Yeah Well, the officiating world has got the same problems as the coaching world and it's only around 20% to 30% are women. The expectation of being on a world tour as a woman is a tough one to mix with family. Here's a nice story though One of our top British officials she's a chair umpire called Kelly recently married a Danish official called Christian. They are now on the tour as a family with their newborn baby, as a family with their newborn baby, and isn't it great that the people who organise the rotas at all the events organise it, so only one of them is working at a time and the other one can look after the baby. So if we can offer that flexibility, then that might pave the way for more people to be able more women particularly to go and do that.
Sandi Procter:But yeah, I mean we've got all sorts of problems with officiating in general because of electronic line calling, so we may end up needing fewer line umpires and therefore, you know, the pathway is probably not amazing. On the refereeing front, there are a lot of women actually because women have got good organising skills in many cases and refereeing is much more about organising and learning the rules and putting the kids on court in the right order of play and all of that. So I don't know what the numbers are, but anecdotally I do see more women referees.
Sue Anstiss:We've talked quite a bit about your history of working in tennis and at the LTA, and I know junior tennis has long been a passion for you, which we talked about through your teaching as well too. So what was your role at the LTA when you worked there?
Sandi Procter:Well, it was to build a program that took kids from short tennis, which had come from Sweden, which many listeners will remember plastic bats, sponge balls, badminton court, to the yellow ball, which is too much of a jump, and everybody, well lots of kids, just couldn't handle it. So I was asked to go and help create a program. So I was part of a team that did it, and we came up with the fact that there were three stages and some of the softballs had come onto the market and, in terms of the name, none of us could think of a name for it. Mini Tennis was given to us as a name to play with, like mini soccer, mini football and everything, but the three stages. We didn't know what to call them.
Sandi Procter:And I was stopped at some traffic lights on the North Circular after one of these meetings, and it took forever for these traffic lights to change. And I looked at it and went red orange and green, that'll be good. Red orange and green, That'll be good. Red orange and green. Went back to the CEO, who was well, my boss was Phil Veazey, who's, interestingly, now a councillor, and his boss Roger Draper, and said we think this is a good idea and he went hmm, okay, do you think it's a bit complicated? And I went kids are in cars, they're in walking, crossing roads, anyway, that was it and the red, orange and green name.
Sandi Procter:And then I led a team that then developed all the coaching resources. We went on roadshows all the way around the country and delivered it to coaches and clubs and counties and everything, and also the ITF adopted it as their way to try and increase participation and one by one, all the other nations came on board, in particular when the USA and the French came on board. Of course, then it was a flyer, because then the ball retailers were willing to colour the balls or mark the balls with either a red, orange and green stripe dot or part colour. And yeah, I mean wow, everywhere I go I see these just kids or photographs in any part of the world with these red, orange and green balls.
Sandi Procter:Because the red ball had to be invented as well, because the sponge ball couldn to be invented as well, because the sponge ball couldn't be used outside, and so we needed an outdoor ball, and Price of Bath were the only company that were willing to give it a go and it was sort of vaguely my idea in the sense. I went to them. But they made it and they've been absolutely wonderful ever since. So made by a British company for a while, until, of course, the big guys decided to copy it and then they lost out a bit. But no, it's a great story. We should have called it the Sandy Program or something, shouldn't we?
Sandi Procter:It would have been globally there.
Sue Anstiss:Yeah, I wasn't on my own doing it, so yeah no, no, it was good well, you sometimes hear, don't we, about the difference in approach to coaching girls and boys in sports. Is that the case in tennis? Or, especially at that little age? Is it very much the same type of programs for?
Sandi Procter:yeah, no, I mean the boys and girls do mix quite a lot, but there are we do a lot of training coaches to help them understand that they do have to approach girls a little bit differently, either within a mixed group or within a group of their own, so there are both ways to it. We've got a great program called Prime Video which is on the back of Emma winning the US Open. Oh, I remember seeing that. Yeah, yeah and yeah, and the coaches are all offered training on how to coach girls, a starter kit for all the girls and free lessons and that's going really well and the retention rate is fantastic. So we are getting more girls in on the back of that. Our gender split at a young age is actually 49 girls anyway. It's later on that the teenagers, the boys, seem to stay longer than the girls that we end up with only a 41 percent adults it's interesting that prime tennis I remember hearing about that, but it was a funding, wasn't?
Sue Anstiss:it was the money that was paid to prime when emma's final went across channel four. That was then utilized for the program was such a such a great initiative, isn't?
Sandi Procter:it Isn't it great yeah.
Sue Anstiss:How fabulous to hear that it has had an impact and you know not, I used to work in PR, but not like it's just a PR story. That is brilliant that the money was taken and it's used for something that is having an impact.
Sandi Procter:I love that too.
Sue Anstiss:It's really good If I were to criticise tennis at all. Historically, it might be that it's been a little bit too exclusive and expensive to play, and I know that tennis recognises that. So can you tell us a little bit about Tennis Opened Up and what the LTA is doing to grow tennis in order to make it more accessible and welcoming to people?
Sandi Procter:Well, it became the new vision of Scott Lloyd when he became the CEO. I've been through many visions at the LTA, as you can imagine. I've been there ages and this has been by far the most effective vision ever. Most tennis people, the community, know that this is something the LTA is trying to do, and the biggest one that's happened very recently has been a lot, but we've just refurbished nearly 3,000 tennis courts in parks and we've also trained activators to deliver free tennis, a bit like park runs, and that's working with local authorities and park operators. So that's an enormous one.
Sandi Procter:You know, 44 percent of people who play tennis play in parks I didn't know that, so a lot of people think it's all in in traditional clubs and it's really not so that that's a really big one for us. We've got an lta youth program which houses the red, orange, green and yellow all together with the youth tennis leaders and all of those. We've got schools LTA Youth Schools Programme that's now trained 18,000 teachers and they get a voucher that they can buy equipment or buy coaching time. We've got a SERVS Program program which goes into disadvantaged communities or non-traditional tennis playing communities like mosques, brownies and guides and cubs and youth clubs and that's going fantastically well and growing all the time. And we have a fantastic inclusion plan. And we've got an open court program that looks after players with disabilities.
Sandi Procter:You probably know, because you follow sport, how good we are at all the disability events. Our wheelchair players, gordon and Alfie, are unbelievable, so they've won so many tournaments. But also we won something like 11 medals at the World Blind Games last year and another hall of medals at the Games for Intellectually Impaired. So we're really good at all of the impairments and we include them. And many of our venues are learning about how they can provide visually impaired tennis, wheelchair tennis. Lots of them are doing LD sessions with local SEN schools. So it is really, really working.
Sue Anstiss:That's so good to hear, isn't it? And I think, just hearing your passion and enthusiasm for it too, to see that it is, because I think it's hard when you're on the outside it's easy to be critical but great especially to hear about the parks activity too. I am hearing more and more of my friends talking about paddle and pickleball, so I wonder how those formats might be bringing more people, and especially more women, to to tennis and just to the tennis type sports yeah, I think I think you're right.
Sandi Procter:So, first of all, they of all, both of them are easier to play than tennis, although if only our adults would play with a green ball, they'd also find it fairly easy. That's another story, but it is easier to play and it's a smaller space. So it is, of course, more sociable. There's a lot more banter because you're nearer to each other and both of them are nearly always doubles. So, yeah, it's going to attract women because of those two things easier and more sociable.
Sandi Procter:And lots of clubs are putting paddle courts in. That takes a structured sort of building. You know you have to build the courts. It's got walls and everything, but a lot of clubs have added them. And then they are now also adding pickleball by just simply marking a court on each end of a hard tennis court and a really good club is offering all of them, and all of them can live alongside each other, no problem. The paddle and pickle are attracting a new audience and in many cases women, and the pickle in particular, could attract a new audience. But at the moment is just keeping, if you like, the slightly older men and women in the club that can't manage a tennis game anymore, but they can manage pickle. And also there's walking tennis, you know, like walking netball, walking football. Yeah, we've got walking tennis and it's brilliant. So the really forward-thinking clubs are offering all of them. Yeah, oh, it's exciting.
Sue Anstiss:It's exciting times, isn't it Really good? Finally, sandy, you've obviously given so much to tennis across your career, but if you had to just summarise what would you say that tennis has given you?
Sandi Procter:Well, first of all, it's given me friends, new friends in tennis. We've got just loads of them. I'm so pleased. Friends for the rest of my life, I'm sure, I suppose. Secondly, it's given me experiences that I will never forget. So I've talked about some of them today.
Sandi Procter:Wimbledon I go to the Grand Slams, I present awards. I'm treated like royalty when I go to clubs and they've always got homemade cake everywhere. Thus I'm having a few problems with my waistline, I think. The other thing, two other things One is, since I retired, in particular, it's given me a great purpose. I am so busy and I get up every morning and the to-do list is longer than I could ever achieve, but I love it. And lastly, I'm going to say the joy. It's given me joy, the joy of knowing that I have made a difference to the kids. I've taught the kids, I've coached tennis. Many of them went on to play for Great Britain. Many of them have found careers in tennis and I'm just delighted to. I enjoyed the joy of giving and making a difference. That's what it's given to me.
Sue Anstiss:I hope you enjoyed hearing from Sandy. She is an extraordinary woman who's still having a huge impact in the world of tennis. A huge impact in the world of tennis. If you'd like to hear from more trailblazers in sport like Sandy. There are over 180 episodes of the Game Changers podcast that are all free to listen to on podcast platforms or from our website at fearlesswomencouk. My guests have included elite athletes, coaches, entrepreneurs, broadcasters, scientists, journalists and CEOs All women who are changing the game in sport.
Sue Anstiss:As well as listening to all the podcasts on the website, you can also find out more about the Women's Sport Collective, a free, inclusive community for all women working in sport. We now have over seven and a half thousand members across the world, so please do come and join us. The whole of my book Game On the Unstoppable Rise of Women's Sport is also free to listen to on the podcast. Every episode of series 13 is me reading a chapter of the book. Thank you once again to Sport England for backing the game changes through the National Lottery, and also to Sam Walker at what Goes On Media, who does such a brilliant job as our executive producer. Thank you also to my lovely colleague at Fearless Women, kate Hannan. You can find the game changes on all podcast platforms and please follow us now so you don't miss out on future episodes. Do come and say hello on social media or you'll find me on linkedin and instagram at sue anstis the game changers fearless women in sport.