Shrewsbury club honours wheelchair tennis pioneer
- Published
Val Fisher was remembered by her club as "an absolutely remarkable lady"
A tennis club has paid tribute to an "inspirational" player who pioneered their disability sport programme.
Valerie Fisher, 61, who had been paralysed from the waist down following an accident, died last week.
Tennis Shropshire said she was "an inspiration" who will be "remembered for her passion in introducing new people to wheelchair tennis".
Her work led to her club in Shrewsbury hosting the national wheelchair tennis championships.
"Val was an absolutely remarkable lady, she met all the challenges that life threw at her head on and became instrumental in us evolving wheelchair tennis at the club which is now a big part of what we offer," Dave Courteen, from the club, said.
"She also had this natural empathy, so when people were coming to the club who had had a similar accident or disability she would embrace them, encourage them to start playing tennis and do anything she could to get them onto the tennis court and discover how much fun it was to play."
The Wheelchair Lawn Tennis Association said they heard of Ms Fisher's death "with great sadness".
Allow Twitter content?
This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’.
The group described her as "a very popular and enthusiastic member of our wheelchair tennis family".
Her club in Shrewsbury said they hoped to arrange a tribute to Ms Fisher, particularly at next month's national wheelchair championships.
"We're hoping that some of Val's family will be there and we can really honour her in a way that will be fitting for all that she contributed," Mr Courteen said.
Follow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, external, Twitter, external and Instagram, external. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk, external