Murphy, McEllin & Bradshaw Tennis Champions

Joe Murphy, 06 & the Murphy Senior Tennis Cup

Tennis has a long unbroken tradition at Knock, witness this report from the 1926 Chronicle -

On the 13th June. Union Day. four Davis Cup players—Meldon. Scroope, Allman-Smith and Maguire—arrived to give an exhibition match. They played three sets—Allman-Smith and Meldon winning. Great interest was shown in Scroope's service. The action was extraordinary. It is a puzzle! All were high in their praises of the new hardcourt, the players included. That shows it is a good one.

A TENNIS TROPHY

We beg to acknowledge, with appreciation and gratitude, the kindness of our past man of class '06, Joe Murphy, LDS, RCSI, in presenting a Cup for Championship Singles in Tennis for the College students. Joe himself is a tennis player of outstanding merit. His generous action will, we feel sure, stimulate a keener interest in tennis in the College, and we hope that his wish may be fulfilled—to wit, that we will in the future turn out some champions from Castleknock.

That it did for the Murphy Senior Tennis Cup has been played for every year since, and Joe Murphy would have witnessed quite a few of those finals which were played on Union Day, most notably in 1947 as he was Union President that year. Joe died 17 Oct 1966.

In 1979 thanks to the kind donation of Ward McEllin, class '73, the McEllin Intermediate Tennis Cup joined the roster focused on emerging tennis stars in third and fourth year. In 1991, our long serving College tennis coach, Aidan Bradshaw, donated the Bradshaw Junior Tennis Trophy in memory of his son Darryl, class '86. First and second years have played for this trophy every year since.

The respective winners (albeit with some gaps which we are hoping publication may help to fill) are as follows: