About BDNTA

The Blackburn & District Night Tennis Association was formed in the second half of 1979. Barry Hall, who was Chairman of Selectors at Blackburn South Tennis Club, had been trying for some time to get a night competition going amongst local Clubs. After a meeting held at Blackburn South Tennis Club on 14/08/1979 the first season started with four teams. The teams were Blackburn South, North Box Hill, Bennettswood and a team from Blackburn who played their matches at Blackburn South as there was a regular social group at Blackburn TC on Tuesday nights so Blackburn couldn’t host their own team.

The very first BDNTA premiership side were a group of strong young Blackburn players. The same team were Runners-Up to Blackburn South in the 1980 Winter Season.

By 1984 there were 12 Venue Clubs and ~94 teams enjoying the social and competitive aspects of local night tennis competition. Team numbers continued to grow as seen in the graph below with the BDNTA reaching the 300 team mark ~1993.

ForĀ ~20 years Barry Hall & Kevin Graham administered the BDNTA with various Record Secretaries assisting Barry & Kevin during this time including Bruce Leister, Rod & Dannie Aitken. Dom Alberico first helped at association level with BDNTA gradings in the late 1980s which coincided with the early years of his 14 year stint on the Tennis Victoria Pennant committee. Kevin Graham retired from BDNTA duties in ~1999 with Barry Hall continuing as President.

Dom Alberico commenced as Record Secretary in the 2001 Winter Season. The first online BDNTA ladders were made available via the Blackburn TC website from 2001.

Barry Hall retired as President at the end of the 2004 Summer season after 25 years service to the association.

Dom Alberico took over as sole administrator of the BDNTA from 2005 until the end of 2012. The rights to www.bdnta.com were purchased in late 2004 and Dom set up the first BDNTA website which went online in early 2005. Since 2004 the competition has moved to a completely home/away based format and teams are now only accepted directly from BDNTA Venue Clubs. After initially doing the ladders manually for many seasons Dom has overseen the introduction of the TROLS online result entry system which has proved to be invaluable to both Club and association administrators. BDNTA first used TROLS in the 2010 winter season. The TROLS system was developed by one of our previous record secretaries, Bruce Leister.

From the 2013 year Dom Alberico continued as President/Administrator of the BDNTA, assisted by four Record Secretaries – Lisa Lovell, John Best, Lisa Petering & David Willing.

In Spring 2021, Dom retired from BDNTA administration after 20 years. David Willing & Paul Arockiadass are the current BDNTA Administrators. Our Tuesday Record Secretary, John Best also retired after the 2021 Autumn season. Lisa Lovell retired from Mondays after many years & Lisa Petering continues as the Wednesday Record Secretary. Paul Arockiadass will be taking on the Tuesday Record Secretary role and David Willing is also continuing as the Thursday Record Secretary. Dom setup the 2021 Spring season draws etc., and assisted the new BDNTA Administration during a transition period. Our team numbers are at a record high with over 440 teams competing in the 2024 Spring Season.