First, I am not sure if this is the right place, but I think it might fit here best. I was looking at tennis forums because I have one myself. I was looking at this one, and I was checking out its stats. How on earth did it even get members? Here are some of the stats: It has a pr of 0 and 42 backlinks listed in Yahoo. http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?q=&url=http://www.centrecourthavoc.com It's like it doesn't exist, yet it has way more members than I do. I would classify it as a success, while I can't even classify mine.
I don't think he would show much on alexa for his domain as the content sowing is from http://z3.invisionfree.com/Centre_Court/index.php?act=idx that shows a google pr3 on my toolbar.
Well they may have used the the good ole way of getting members one often forgot about word of mouth on the street. Good local effort can really help a site get launched this and bundled with seo you cannot go wrong.
I've done lots of seo work. I haven't tried any local advertising. I'll have to try putting up some flyers.