I am very upset Byron Shire Council went with the Northern Rivers Tennis Foundation to take over the lease of Mullum tennis courts.
It led to the dumping of local Steve Gort as tennis coach to our kids. Steve has taught my son and countless other locals tirelessly for the last 11 years, producing some champion players.
Steve himself was born and raised in Mullum, went to school here and distinguished himself as a junior player at the national level, ranking 70th in his day.
Steve’s dismissal as coach to Mullum courts means if I want Steve to coach my 15-year-old, as he’s done for the last ten years, I will have to drive him to Ballina each week. Until now, he’s caught the bus from Shearwater, gets off the bus in Mullum and walks to the local court for his lesson and squad every Monday and I pick him up at 7pm. It worked like clockwork for years.
Omar will no longer play tennis this coming term because it’s an impossible ask. I’m sure it will be the same for lots of other kids and parents living in Mullum that Steve coaches.
Steve, thank you for all you’ve taught Omar and other kids over the last decade.
You’ve been a real inspiration to our kids, not only teaching them tennis skills on the court, but instilling in them important concepts for life. This includes fair play and team responsibility, and how to lose nobly, as you have done in taking this knockout blow to your fledging business.
Concepts like ‘loyalty’ no longer seem to exist in the new Byron – it’s yet another example, like the 57 Station Street ‘affordable housing’ fiasco, and the destruction of the old Mullum Hospital, which BSC knocked down on the advice of these same highly-paid ‘professional’ senior staff at a cost of $5m(!) to ratepayers.
The Mullum tennis courts, like the old hospital, were a community asset that BSC called its own and both were hopelessly mismanaged, in my opinion, on the advice of staff.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
