The Bandeja summer 2024 issue

Move over
football...
The Social Sports Society has opened its first venue
- three courts close to Wembley Stadium in North London.
Wembley Padel is the
neighbourhood’s first padel venue
and bookings have been rolling in
via Playtomic. A series of events
and coaching programmes will be
announced for summer.
A Social Sports Society spokesperson
said: “The venue will be welcomed
by local padel fans, among whom
there’s a high demand for courts.
With an on-site snack bar and comfy
seating, players will enjoy a space
to socialise before and after matches.
It boasts a central location close to
Wembley BOXPARK, London Designer
Outlet and, of course, Wembley
Stadium itself.”
After securing the site from
developers Quintain Living last year,
the company worked with courts
manufacturer MejorSet to prepare
for opening.
Hayling Island life
Life on Hayling Island may soon be
boosted by the addition of padel if
Seacourt Tennis Club gets plans for
two floodlit courts past planners at
Havant Borough Council.
The club is unusual in that it already
offers padel, but on a rackets court
that is slightly shorter and narrower.
Despite this, the Seacourt Padel
Group has been running for several
years, with ‘upwards of 100 people
playing’ according to comments on the
borough council’s planning portal.
The scheme has attracted strong
feelings for and against. One
supporter said: “The current makeshift
padel court at Seacourt is the
wrong size and has the wrong wall and
floor playing surfaces. It floods when
it rains and is insufferably hot and
airless when the sun shines. Despite
these drawbacks the demand to play
Social Sports Society founder Jesper
Konstantinov, a London-based
entrepreneur, said: “Padel is one of
the most fun, accessible sports. It can
be played at any level, it’s easy to
learn and has a unique ability to bring
together a cross-section of society.”
* To read more about the Social Sports
Society and Jesper’s padel plans for
the UK visit www.thebandeja.com
and search ‘Jesper’
is ever-increasing and, as word gets
around, will soon outgrow even these
very much sub-standard facilities.”
The plan also has the support of the
council’s leisure officer, who said the
courts had ‘the potential to impact
positively on the borough’s poor
physical activity levels and health
inequalities by providing a new
sporting offer to the borough’.
A decision on the scheme is awaited.
PadelStars
shoots onto the
club scene
PadelStars is a new name with big
ambitions - eight new padel clubs
and 27 courts to be precise - with its
first (one court at Berkshire County
Sports Club in Reading) already
up and running.
Founders Andy Knee and Jamie
Brooke are working with sports clubs
and leisure facilities to introduce padel
to their sites, with five more venues
planned to open this year - Golfplex,
Bracknell (four courts); Trojans Hockey
Club, Southampton (six courts);
Ferndown, Bournemouth (two courts
plus pickleball); Batchwood Golf and
Sports Centre, Harpenden (two courts)
and Old Loughtonians Hockey Club,
Chigwell (four courts). The company
is using its own app - PadelStars
- for court bookings.
PadelStars is sponsoring Southampton’s Trojans Hockey Club
U16 boys team, which had an amazing 2022-3 season (English
Hockey Tier 1 Championship & English Hockey Tier 1 Supra
League Championship winners).
PadelStars’ Jamie
Brooke, Jeevan
Gill (Director of
Operations) and
Andy Knee.
In addition, it has plans to develop
padel at Basildon Sporting Village in
Essex (four courts) and The Three Hills
Sports Park in Folkestone (three courts).
PadelStars recently announced
major investment in the business by
leisure specialist the Dwellcourt
Group. Jeff Hilliard, Dwellcourt
Chairman, said they’d ‘had several’
approaches by padel operators hoping
to build courts on their sites. “Andy
and Jamie stood apart for their vision,
dynamism and professionalism,”
he said. “With a pipeline of strong new
sites being secured, we have decided
to once again back impressive
people and see how we might offer
our operational experience as well as
our investment to help them scale
their business.”
10 court
plan
An ambitious scheme to build
indoor padel courts could score
two UK firsts - the first listed
building to be turned into a padel
centre and the first to have two
floors of courts. Owners of the
Grade II*-listed Machine Shop
No 8, at Chatham Dockside, Kent,
have gained consent to install 10
padel courts - two floors of five
- into the historic building, built
in 1840 and believed to be one of
the oldest surviving iron-framed
dry dock covers. The building
will be restored and partially
clad in aluminium to protect the
skeleton structure.
Padel
Enable-d
Four popup padel courts have
opened for the summer in
Battersea Park’s Millennium
Arena thanks to an initiative
by not-for-profit organisation
Enable, which manages facilities
for Wandsworth Council.
Enable has also turned the popup
court it installed at Battersea
Sports Centre last September
into a permanent court, with
hopes that it may be able to do
the same at Battersea Park.
All courts are bookable through
the Padel Mates app.
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