ON the eve of Wimbledon fortnight, we talk to those involved in the game about the state of the tennis in East Lancashire.

IT is nearly 20 years since an East Lancashire player graced the All England Lawn Tennis Championships.

And Mark Schofield, the last player to appear at Wimbledon, is hoping to end all that.

Now a top class coach, the former Great Britain junior number one is charged with nuturing the talents of the area’s budding tennis players.

Schofield, who played at junior Wimbledon in the early 1990s, is one of the few LTA Performance Coaches in the country.

And he believes an East Lancashire player could soon follow in his footsteps to SW19, the most famous postcode in sport.

“It has been a long time but hopefully it won’t be too long before we have another player at Wimbledon,” said Schofield, who played against some of the world’s greatest players during his junior days.

“We have some very talented players in the area at the younger age scale and I think they have a very good chance of going on to appear at Wimbledon.”

Schofield insists the state of tennis in the area is in good health and points to the fact that several players are high in the county rankings.

Blackburn brothers, Charlie Hutchings, 12, and George, nine, are both ranked number one in their age group while Charlie is in the top 20 in the country.

Other budding stars include Whalley’s Dominic Naylor, eight, and 10-year-old Lydia Bury from Simonstone, who are also ranked highly in their respective age categories.

“These players who are among the best in their age groups in the county,” added Schofield, who beat Tim Henman as an 18-year-old to win the national junior indoor championships.

“What we are not blessed with, compared to other regions, is a big pot of players who are playing the game.

"But that is something we are working on.

“We have a good outreach programme with schools across the area and I would say we have more youngsters playing tennis now than we did five years ago.”

Schofield coaches at the John Schofield Tennis Centre - which was set up by his father - and is an LTA Performance accredited centre.

In an attempt to attract players from a younger age, an initiative has been running for the last 12 months aimed at year one and year two pupils.

The scheme starts with hand-eye coordination before moving on to ‘colour-coded’ stages - using different weighted balls and varying sizes of courts - as youngsters progress as players.

“There is a need to get youngsters involved and interested in tennis early on and perhaps entice them away from other sports and that is why we launched this particular initiative.”

Schofield hopes such schemes will help to continue to boost the number of youngsters playing the game in this country who currently lag well behind other nations.

“There is nothing wrong with the standard of coaching in this country.

"Our problem is that we simply don’t have enough players.

"If you compare us to the likes of Spain and Italy, we only have around 10 per cent of the players to work with.”

And he doesn’t believe the game is as elitist or expensive as it is made out.

“People say tennis is too expensive and that is why children don’t play but that doesn’t have to be the case.

“Of course we would like it to be cheaper but youngsters can become junior members of tennis clubs from around £30 a year.

"Ideally, it is better if a parent plays tennis as well so you are not having to pay for coaches or hitters.

“Because we get LTA funding, we subsidise our youngsters and try to make it as cheap as possible to play.

“But, just like any other sport, it does get more expensive the better you get as you pay for coaches and travel around the country competing in competitions.”

Schofield, now 37, played at junior Wimbledon in 1991 and in 1992 where he reached the second round before losing to Andriy Medvedev, who later went on to reach the French Open final.

He also played against the likes of Swedish stars Stefan Edberg, Thomas Enqvist and Thomas Johansson and represented Great Britain across the world.

He turned professional as a 19-year-old but gave up a year later - a decision, he admits in hindsight, was wrong.

“I should have stuck at it a big longer but I made my decision which, I know now, was probably the wrong one.”

But Schofield remains a force on the county circuit and has been Lancashire champion on eight occasions and is the current men’s captain.

Now he is hoping to unearth the next Lancashire champion and perhaps a player to follow in his footsteps all the way to the All England Lawn Tennis Championships.