Aidan Smith: Legacy the aim for Murray's tennis centre

Judy Murray is passionate about creating a legacy for her sons' achievements

Many will have been inspired to take to the courts right away, hoping that keen scrutiny of Andy’s flashing backhand and killer lobs might improve their game. Conveniently, yesterday was a holiday. Inconveniently, Scotland is not a tennis nation. There aren’t many courts, or days when you can play with the sun on your back. This wet and crater-marked land just happens to have produced these sensational siblings.

So what should be the country’s response to the Murrays? Immense gratitude, obviously – and, just checking, has Andy’s knighthood been organised yet? Should we bow down to their talent and dedication but acknowledge that the most amazing good fortune has played its part in their story and that we’re unlikely to find two more superstars dodging the rain and the overbooking, at least not for a while?

Or – and this is the big question – should we rip up a much-loved beauty spot and build a £70 million sports complex which could speed up the search for their successors?

The Murrays’ irrepressible, racquet-and-ball-evangelist mother Judy is driving the plans for the centre at Park of Keir on Dunblane’s outskirts. They’ve been rejected by the local council after 1,000 residents rallied in resistance. A public inquiry wrapped last week and Scottish ministers are now in the umpire’s chair.

“We will never have an opportunity like this again in Scotland: two world-class players and a huge amount of enthusiasm and excitement for the sport,” Judy wrote at the weekend. “We need to be capitalise on that now. Once they stop playing, that excitement will start to fade.”

Like a tennis-serving machine she was firing balls everywhere. At Tennis Scotland, the Lawn Tennis Association and the Scottish Government. Everyone had to do more, make available more funds, provide more facilities. And she wasn’t just talking tennis; all sports needed help if they were to help the country have more fun, get fitter and maybe, just maybe, produce the legends of tomorrow.

Who would argue with any of that? Ah, but the Park of Keir wouldn’t just have to accommodate tennis facilities if the plans get the go-ahead. There would be a hotel, 19 luxury homes and a short golf course. Perhaps now we’ve reached the root of the dispute. You imagine there might be a few among the 1,000 objectors who aren’t violently opposed to the sports facilities but are dead against the rest.

This is the nature of these developments, forcing sport into bed with something less appealing. I live near to Edinburgh Accies’ rugby ground and four years ago the club unveiled plans for a grandstand. Bombastically large given the tiny attendances, it would have shops and bars underneath.

The proposals provoked local condemnation. Four years ago, you’ll remember, there was a post-London Olympics mania for all things sporty. It was the best time to be seeking to disturb the village feel of Stockbridge and councillors agreed. Welcoming approval of the scheme, a newspaper editorial told us to stop being a bunch of nimbys and look forward to the development.

I’m pretty sure the editorial used the word “legacy”. That very funny and, as it turns out, very prescient sitcom Twenty Twelve had a running joke about legacy: everyone was talking about it, no one really knew what it meant. So what’s been the legacy of those Games? Obesity levels have continued to rise.

The legacy of that council decision for Stockbridge has been a big fat nothing. One popular local conspiracy theory was that the stand would be a Trojan horse for a Tesco but neither has arrived. Forced into a corner by some well-educated bruisers with cauliflower ears, I might not mind living next door to a smart rugby ground – not for Accies, who can’t justify it, but Edinburgh’s pro-team – only don’t want the rest of the scheme.

To make a rugby development work, it seems, there has to be the necessary evil of bars full of rugger-buggers. To make a tennis development work, apparently, there has to be a hotel. The alternative is state-funded sports facilities cutting out the ancillary stuff but that’s never going to happen. So, if we’re serious about sport and legacy we have to put our trust in people like Judy Murray. Anyone who has ever spent time with her while she’s toured the country in her Tennis of the Road battlebus cannot fail to be impressed by her missionary zeal.

She’s passionate about tennis, and tennis for all. Having absolutely no interest in perpetuating the image of a middle-class sport best learned in Daddy’s spacious garden, she rails against public courts being neglected, shut down or sold off.

Park of Keir, she stresses, is a grassroots project, not a centre of excellence or tennis academy, but geared to growing the game. “Future generations are relying on this one to make good decisions, to invest in sport and health and put down the foundations from which they can build champions like Andy and Jamie,” she says.

She sounds very persuasive, but then I don’t live there.