The Falmouth Sports Club was established in 1886 as ‘The Falmouth Club’ with a clubhouse in Market Street, Falmouth and tennis courts behind the clubhouse going down towards the harbour’s edge.

The original location was in a classic building, known over recent years as Bratts, a haberdastore and Anns Cottage, a surf clothing retailer. In its original form, it was a ‘Gentlemen’s Club’, provided for the professional and ‘well to do’ of the town.

In 1924, the Carne family who at that time owned the Greenlawns Hotel (adjacent to the club) leased an area of land for tennis courts; the name was changed to ‘The Falmouth Lawn Tennis Club.’

The club prospered and in 1928 the freehold was purchased, (with two grass courts) -There were 9 grass courts at a very early date, these being seven doubles courts and two rare singles courts. These were arranged as three in front of the clubhouse, one sunken court on the site of the now surgery, three covering what are now courts 1 & 2 and another double court where the two old squash courts are. The two singles courts were situated between the surgery and the old squash courts.

In 1933, the club built a squash court, the first in the South West. In order to do this, the club lost one doubles court and the two singles courts. It then experienced a further name change to The Falmouth Squash and Tennis Club. Further expansion created a clubhouse modelled on the classic building of its origin. The granite pillars from the original club were copied and used in the current club house verandah.

During the 1940′s the two grass courts adjacent to the new squash court were laid to tarmac, and in the early 50′s a second squash court was added.

After World War 2 for a number of years Open Tennis Tournaments were held at Falmouth that attracted players as far afield as Kent, and were of quite a high standard. It was not unusual for up to 100 spectators to watch the finals. Social highlights of the year included a ball at the end of the Open tournament and a New Years Eve ball (both formal dress) and it was considered to be the place to be for the New Years Ball as even non members would try and get tickets. Around this time there were two bars. One was used for the summer time where the present one now is, and a winter one where the gym/office is now. On special occasions both bars were used. There was a Grand Piano situated in the main room and now and again members would gather around for a sing song. One or two members were very good pianists.

In the Early 60′s the Clubs membership was increased overnight by about 30 members of the Pendennis Tennis Club, which was situated in the grounds of Belmont School (Woodlane). This was wound up due to the land being sold off. The Falmouth Club needed more members as it was not in a healthy financial position and Pendennis members had nowhere to play; so everybody was happy. Also around this time the club provided the tennis membership with fourgrass courts and two hard courts.

The club fell on hard times and sold the land that the sunken court was on to a cafe owner in Falmouth. They built the bungalow that is now the doctors’ surgery. The club benefited for the proceeds of sale by installing central heating throughout the club.

Growing through the late 70′s, three new squash courts were constructed over one of the grass courts immediately in front of the clubhouse. The remaining two grass courts declined due to the high cost of maintenance. At the very bottom of the club land adjacent to the two existing hard courts was land used as allotments. Prior to the construction of the three new squash courts this land was turned into a further two hard courts, thus giving by the early 80′s a club with three squash courts and four hard tennis courts, much as it is today.

Shortly after, the club again changed its name to ‘The Falmouth Sports Club’. Further Sports Council grants in the 90′s provided the club with funding for floodlights on two of the tennis hard courts. Both original squash courts situated at the lower end of the club site are still in use, ‘The Swamp Circus’ (a charity) uses one court for its training activities which include jugglers, stilt walkers, acrobats, contortionists, magicians, trapeze artists, unicyclists and other circus artists. Also Brazilian Martial Art dance Capoeira is conducted in here. The other old squash court is home to Martial Arts, Thai kick boxing, jujutsu and Judo.

The present Falmouth Sports Club, is a Members Club. The club committee administer the club’s operations on behalf of the members. There are three Trustees who act as a buffer to the club being sold off.

In 2003 the committee at that time investigated an alliance with the Falmouth Rugby Club to develop combined facilities in (an out of town) location this proposal was eventually mothballed.

Following this a developer expressed an interest in the club grounds and the proposal was the relocate the Falmouth Sports Club to another site within Falmouth. They would have built at cost our new facility requirements i.e. four outdoor floodlit tennis courts, four indoor tennis courts/badminton court complex. four indoor squash court complex complete with seating. A sports hall to house the Martial Arts, Capoeira and Swamp Circus. A clubhouse with a bar area over looking the squash court complex and a committee room and social area. Full changing room facilities for male and female and all parking and associated infrastructure. However after pursuing this for six years we were unable to bring it to fruition as the interested parties Cornwall County Council Education Department and The Primary Care Trust and Falmouth School were unable to come to agreement over the proposed site for re location. In June 2009, the committee made the decision to not pursue any further relocation possibilities with the developer and for the club to remain where it is.

The current committee is actively pursuing a programme of advancement, which includes Sports England’s Club Mark initiative. Clubmark is a national cross sports quality accreditation scheme for clubs with junior sections.