Coaching team

Full-time coaches catering for all abilities and needs

Whether your game needs a radical overhaul or just the odd tweak, whatever your age, ability or disability (wheelchair tennis is also available), and whether you are learning the game from scratch or want to be able to compete better at an advanced level, you’ll find the coaches you need here. Send us an email if you'd like their contact details.

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Simon Woodhill
Simon is an LTA Accredited+ Level 4 Senior Performance Coach and the head coach at Taunton Tennis Centre. He leads the team of coaches and the junior programme and delivers the adult daytime courses. He also works for the Somerset LTA as the Junior County Cup coordinator. He works with players of all levels and ages, and his current oldest player is 90! He has worked at the club and at Taunton Tennis Centre for around 25 years. We used to be able to persuade him to play for the club’s teams, but it’s no longer so easy given his coaching commitments and young family.

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Natalie Ackland
​Natalie is an LTA Accredited+ Level 4 Senior Development Coach who specialises in performance coaching for juniors and also delivers a lot of the adult pay and play sessions. She has over 15 years of coaching experience. She is a county player, plays for Taunton in the Team Tennis National Open, has played for Great Britain’s over 35s’ women’s team in the Seniors World Team Championships and was a member of the Somerset team that won the Women’s 35 Inter County Championship in 2017.

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Ivor Griffiths
Ivor is an LTA Accredited+ Level 3 Coach with over 40 years of experience. He specialises in coaching disability tennis and provides group and individual coaching to both juniors and adults. He is said to have the patience of a saint. He also organises a number of social tournaments throughout the year: Snakes and Ladders tournaments, American tournaments, triples tournaments and so on.

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Anna Howe
Anna is an LTA Accredited+ Level 3 Coach with four years of coaching experience, represented the county as a junior and also played matches for the club’s teams before coaching took over. She learned her tennis in the junior programme at the centre and also came through the coaching apprenticeship scheme here, starting in 2013. She particularly enjoys taking Cardio Tennis and the Tennis Tots classes.

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Glenn Clarke
Glenn is an LTA Accredited Level 3 Coach and came through the coaching apprenticeship scheme at the centre, which he entered in 2014. He gets a kick out of helping people improve and takes a lot of Mini Tennis classes, adult beginner and improver classes and Cardio Tennis sessions. He still plays for the club’s teams when he can fit it around coaching. 

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Sophie Butland
Sophie is an LTA Accredited Level 2 Coach and the current coaching apprentice at the centre. She learned her tennis in the junior programme here and recently graduated from university in the US, where she went on a tennis scholarship. She has represented the county as both a junior and an adult and plays for Taunton’s Team Tennis National Open team.​

Taunton Tennis Club
Blackbrook Pavilion, Blackbrook Way, Taunton TA1 2RW
[email protected]