Have a game, set and match

“I had two more enquiries on Monday, from two different people,” says head coach Colin Dunbar.

“In the two weeks around Wimbledon we always get a lot more calls, from people who don’t take an interest through the rest of the year. At the moment we have about 250 kids, so we are close to full. We have youngsters from Selkirk to Ulverston.”

Andy Murray’s second Wimbledon victory has of course raised the profile of Mr Mr Dunbar’s sport even further. And with the school summer holidays starting next week and Wimbledon still in their minds, youngsters who dream of being the next Andy Murray now have the time to try tennis.

But this summer has been a sportier one than usual, with a variety of international contests crowded into the space of three months

The Euro 2016 football tournament was followed closely not just by Wimbledon but also by the British athletics championships in Birmingham.

The British Open golf tournament began yesterday. We’re just over halfway through this year’s Tour de France. The start of the Rio Olympics is only three weeks away.

When Britain’s sports stars and teams are making the front pages of the newspapers as well as the back pages, and coming top of the TV news bulletins instead of at the tail end, then all the extra attention could well mean extra participation.

“Tennis isn’t even a back page sport – it is maybe two or three pages in,” Mr Dunbar points out. “For Andy Murray to put a story on the front page does help the sport.”

So plenty of youngsters are showing an enthusiasm for tennis. But getting adults interested proves more of a challenge. “We did have quite healthy adult numbers in the past, but the floods definitely had an impact,” he notes.

“We were under six feet of water. If people aren’t able to play their tennis they will look at something else they can do, especially with a fitness aspect to it.

“And perhaps there’s a stigma to starting. To start from scratch could be quite daunting.

“We need to target the parents of children who come along. If the kids start getting good at it, the parents start taking more of an interest.”

How long, however, will youngsters’ new-found enthusiasm last? And does the higher profile of tennis, or any other sport, really encourage the non-sporty to take it up?

Mr Dunbar points out that it won’t necessarily increase engagement in sport – since the likely candidates are probably already engaged.

“You tend to find that a lot of kids who are athletically minded are involved in sport anyway.

“If you go into a school and choose the three or four best tennis players, they’re often the three or four best footballers, or the three or four best at athletics or whatever.”

And young people can be fickle. “Tennis is quite a hard game to play well, and takes a lot of time and perseverance.

“Kids will sometimes do it until it gets a bit harder work, and then try something else.”

So it remains to be seen whether the current enthusiasm lasts. “The proof of the pudding will be in the eating, in the next few weeks,” he adds.

Golf is being included in the Olympic Games for the first time this year and Julie Wannop, owner of Eden Golf Club in Crosby-on-Eden, is confident of the benefits.

“Golf was in decline a while ago, but the fact that it’s there in the Olympics will increase its popularity,” she predicts.

It will also highlight the fact that – thanks to its handicap system – anyone can play anyone else.

“It’s the one sport where junior and senior players play together. And with football or rugby, people have to retire as they get older. That doesn’t happen with golf. You can play it if you are four or 40 or 80.”

She adds: “It depends on how Britain does. But if we get a good run of success it will have a positive effect.”

Not everyone shares Mrs Wannop’s confidence, however. It cost £9.3 billion to stage the Olympic Games in London in 2012, and the money was justified by the “Olympic legacy” we were promised – that the whole country would become sportier, and healthier, as a result.

It didn’t. Figures from the Local Government Association show that involvement in sport has fallen since then. The number of over-16s taking part at least once a week has slumped by 400,000.

And Colin Seel believes any enthusiasm generated by this summer of sport will prove equally short-lived.

Mr Seel is a former professional football referee and president of the Carlisle Glass Longhorn Youth Football League. There’s still a vibrant youth football scene in the city, he says. But he’s pessimistic about more general prospects.

“This week someone said Andy Murray’s achievement would motivate a whole generation to take up tennis. I said: ‘For a fortnight it will.’

“The London Olympics cost more than £9 billion – and there are actually fewer people taking part in athletics now than ever. There’s only ever a short-term benefit.

“When there was a test match on the telly, you’d see kids outside the same night pretending to be England cricketers. A fortnight later there was nobody there.

“Unfortunately we are breeding a generation of viewers rather than participants.

“If there’s a gain at all it will be a very short-term one.”

Competitive cyclist Carol Westmorland of Border City Wheelers would like to see more women in particular take up sport – but doesn’t believe this summer will do anything to inspire them. Sport, she believes, isn’t promoted as it should be.

“In my 20 years as a cyclist, we haven’t done anything to harness talent and inspire people,” she complains. “We’ve got massive talent out there that isn’t realised, and it’s going to stay that way.”

Potential women cyclists, she feels, are encouraged least of all. National body British Cycling is trying to persuade one million more women to take it up by 2020, but she says: “We dress them up in pink and set very low expectations. There are no time trials for them locally and they don’t know what they could achieve. It’s a huge pity.

“The people who already have sport on their radar will do it. But the people who really need it, who would benefit physically or mentally, will fall through the cracks.”

Nigel Longworth, of Eden Valley Cycle Touring Club, is 66 and cycles around 100 miles a week. He agrees cycling is growing in popularity, but reckons it’s only partly down to the current publicity.

“People make a resolution to take up cycling at the beginning of the year, if they’re going to do it by way of exercise,” he says. “You can’t ask for a better exercise to keep alive and healthy.”

All the coverage has some effect. “People do get interested by the Tour de France and the Tour of Britain. For several years the Tour of Britain has been coming through Cumbria, and last year we had it passing through our village, Melmerby.

“That all raises the profile. People see it and think: ‘I used to cycle. Maybe I could do it again?’

“We’re a touring rather than a racing club, but there are those who get engaged by the racing on TV but don’t want to race themselves.”

However he sees a shift in culture taking place, moving cycling more mainstream – and that, more than any media sports coverage, is what will allow it to grow.

He offers an example. “The massive cultural shift in our time was stopping smoking in public buildings.

“When I was younger that would never have happened, but there was remarkably little fuss when it did.

“With cycling a shift is happening that hasn’t fully been absorbed yet. But we can’t go on making short journeys by car.

“It will happen, I’m sure of it. ”