Lawn tennis, padel and pickleball are all booming in popularity throughout the UK, while its ancestor, Real Tennis, is often left forgotten.
There are now only 45 Real Tennis clubs in the world, 27 in the UK, and only one in Manchester.
The sport has been played since the 13th Century, and at Manchester Tennis and Racquets Club tennis’ oldest ancestor is still alive and kicking.
Stella Heap, the General Manager of Manchester Tennis and Racquets Club for the past 35 years, said:
“Real tennis is called real tennis because it’s the original tennis, it’s also called royal tennis because people like Henry VIII used to play it.
“It’s a bit like tennis and squash put together.”
Unlike Lawn Tennis, Real Tennis is played with a harder ball, meaning it is slower, and more precise.
It is played on an indoor court, with three shaped walls, a sloped roof and two different sides.
It’s a game of strategy, in which one end is the ‘Service End’ and the other is the ‘receiving’ or ‘hazard end’
Players compete for points akin to tennis, with tennis’ point scoring system originating from Real Tennis.
There are three outcomes to a rally: point won, point lost, or a chase.
A chase is created when the ball lands in the courts red area, while if the second bounce of the ball on the floor lands in the green area of the floor, it would result in a point to the player who struck the shot.
Heap said: “It’s a great thinking game; you have to think about where you’re going to hit the ball.
“The idea is you don’t have a big swing like normal tennis, it’s almost as if your shoulders stick to your body, and a lot more blocking and keeping the wrist firm, so when the ball hits your strings it just bounces straight back.
“The rackets have a flat part on the bottom so they look a bit wonky, people sometimes think they’ve got a bad racket.”
The sport is played with handmade balls and wooden rackets which can’t be bought by the public.
Heap said: “They’re all handmade the balls, so you need to drink a bottle of wine first, and then you put the corks through a garden shredder.
“Then you bind them around to make a tiny ball, a bit like a golf ball, and then that’s bound so the cover doesn’t come off.
“You then put another cover, another twine round and the pros then hand sew the outer cover on so it looks like a normal tennis ball.
“The balls last for about 18 months, but the cover lasts for about ten days, you drop them and you think it’s not going to bounce, but in fact when you watch them, they’re very bouncy.”
The club is located on Blackfriars Road and is the oldest sporting facility in Greater Manchester to have retained its present use.
The building is Grade II* listed, with Heap joking the club were unable to change anything due to its historical importance:
“I wanted to redo the letters outside the club, and it was going to cost £25,000!”
Heap said: “We were built in the 1870’s, just 200 yards down the road.
“When the railway came along, they compulsory purchased us, and when they rebuilt us, they rebuilt us with one racquet court and one real tennis court.
“If they hadn’t done that, we probably wouldn’t be here now.”
So it was a happy accident which brought the court to the centre of Manchester, a court which now preserves the sport’s history.
The sport has been played since the 13th Century, with references Real Tennis being played under the reign of Alexander III in Scotland.
It is steeped in royal history, with King Henry VIII famously playing at Hampton Court Palace.
Many clubs were lost in the 20th century, and only two clubs remained open during the Second World War, with Manchester being one of them.
The club struggled in the 21st century, and have had to adapt to social changes, but has steadily rebuilt its membership over the last few years.
Heap said: “We have struggled a bit since covid, that knocked us out a little bit, a lot of people didn’t come back into Manchester.
“There used to be lot of red brick buildings, and they’ve all gone, we used to be the big building in the area, we‘re now the tiny building around here.
The club will celebrate its 150th Anniversary in May, and for a sport so steeped in history it’s just about how to bring the attention back.
“We need to move forward with the times, but the game won’t change.
“For us it’s keeping the game going.”