Southland Tennis Owes Much To Mr N. Hoskin

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30977, 5 February 1966, Page 11

Southland Tennis Owes Much To Mr N. Hoskin

TN January, 1962, an energetic and voluble tennis coach from Southland brought a few young tennis players to the Canterbury junior championships. Since then young Southlanders in increasing numbers have travelled by plane, train, car and ship to tournaments in Christchurch, Auckland and even Australia.

In January this year the same coach was again at Wilding Park with a party of Southlanders for the Canterbury junior championships but before the national junior championships, where some of his proteges gained outstanding success, he had to return home.

The Southlanders began by having a little success in youngest sections of provincial tournaments; then they began having a great deal of success in several sections; and now they have risen to prominence nationally.

A great deal of the credit goes to the coach, Mr N. Hoskin, not only for his coaching—he is probably no better than a good many other

coaches—but also for his enterprise, his organising ability, his unbounded enthusiasm and his ability to instil it in others.

Since 1962 the situation has changed considerably. Mr Hoskins’s coaching began with country children when

he was employed by a Southland sports firm. Some of them are those who are doing so well now.

Later, with many parents Involved, an organisation called Junior Tennis Promotion, Southland, was formed, chartered planes were taken to tournaments, a news sheet was produced for members and the most ambitious trip was one to Australia. However, for a long time the organisation was at odds with the Southland associa-

tion, even though it was having more success with juniors than ever before in the province. During last year the group became part of the association and its players now represent it officially. Through the efforts of Mr Hoskin and his group, a province long in the tennis doldrums has been brought sharply to the notice of provinces like Auckland, Wellington and Canterbury which may have felt their superiority. Canterbury certainly had first cause some time to take note when Southlanders made a clean sweep of the five under-13 sections at one of its tournaments.

Already. before last month, fame had been brought to the group and its methods by Miss S. Collins. Sixth on the national under-15 list last season, the first ranked Southlander since R. Welsh in 1957, she was at the end of last year selected as one of the four girls to represent New Zealand in the Wilson cup inter-State competition in Australia. She later won the North Island under-17 singles and has now stayed on for a short time in Australia after being specially selected for coaching under Harry Hopman. Now other Southlanders have made their mark nationally, and they had to fight from unseeded positions. B. McDowell ‘reached the final of the under-15 boys’ singles at the Canterbury championships after beating the top seeded player and K. Wilson and R. Webster reached the semi-

finals and final of the national under-15 singles, respectively, taking some notable seeded scalps with some remarkable play. There were others who impressed too like Webster’s brother, I. Webster, P. J. King and K. Corkery and the girls, S. Stirling, J. Roy and S. Sanson.

And one of those largely responsible was, for one of the few times, not there to see them. He may still feel a great deal of satisfaction.