In response to our recent series on club sport, which plotted the decline of club membership since the mid-1980s, long-serving tennis correspondent Dennis Radford emailed the Otago Daily Times outlining the situation for tennis.
"My tennis club at St Clair used to have 128 players in interclub teams every Saturday as well as another large number of back-up players,'' he wrote.
"Now the club has one team of four with two reserves. There are five courts and about 12 affiliated members, although another 30-40 use the courts on a casual basis.
"The same themes keep coming up, [for example a] lack of time or commitment, casualisation of sport and an increase of social players versus regularly committed or affiliated players leading to less funding and the subsequent deterioration of facilities.
"The courts at the Edgar Centre are full on Tuesday social night all winter, and Logan Park is full on veterans' Wednesdays and school Thursdays. But most of these are casuals like the Monday cricketers. Many masters and veterans now play on instead of coaching, mentoring and administrating and prefer to work in their own age-group, leaving busy young parents to try to deal with the juniors.''
Former Chisholm Park golf professional Andrew Whiley also wrote in with his view on the issue.
"A lot of sport used to be associated with the workplace,'' he wrote.
"With the change in working environments, that team atmosphere - where groups got together on the weekends - has been lost. The social, twilight competitions have benefited from this change.
"A former Otago Cricket development officer alerted me to the fact of the diminishing hand-eye co-ordination in youth over the last 20 years which has seen many try but drop out of sport quicker.
"I noticed, when coaching golf to young golfers, that they were quick to give it up versus take up the challenge and persevere.
"There are also an increasing number of sports to choose from. When I was at high school in the early '80s, we were lucky if we had a dozen sports at our school.
"Now many have 30 or more to select from. So do we have the same numbers playing sport across a wider range of sport?
"Even though you didn't cover it, golf is struggling for 'club numbers'. I feel that this is due to a lack of investment and appetite to grow the game nationally and at a club level over the last 20 years.
"Clubs used to have plenty of members and folks lining up to join, but times have changed and the lack of attention to fostering the next generation of golfers has resulted in dwindling memberships.''
A review of the Otago Daily Times sports draws from 1985 to 2015 revealed the most drastic decline in club membership took place during the 10 years from 1995 to 2005.
University of Otago professor Douglas Booth, when contacted for comment, was not surprised that period proved problematic for clubs.
A sports historian, Booth said the mid-1990s corresponded with the "professionalisation of both rugby and netball''.
"You are creating a whole new environment and it took on more of a vocational theme rather than a recreational activity,'' Booth said.
"The clubs had to adjust to that and are they just the feeders for the professional teams or are they entities in their own right?
"The clubs were kind of victims and had to reinvent themselves significantly and were probably not capable of reinventing themselves.''
Club crisis
The reasons
Seven reasons why people have walked away from club sport. -
1 Structured club sport does not always suit our hectic lifestyles.
2 The extended working week means people are often too busy earning a crust.
3 There are more options these days and people are often forced to divide their time.
4 People are less inclined to persevere.
5 Fees can put sport out of reach for some families.
6 Clubs are not the thriving places they once were.
7 Some club facilities are rundown.
