IN 2011 Huddersfield Lawn Tennis and Squash Club became the first club in the UK to take the ground-breaking decision to add two padel courts to their excellent facilities. Ten years later they reopened their courts in partnership with Game4Padel and with the addition of a canopy roof.
In the two years since, our relationship with Huddersfield has gone from strength to strength and in October 2022 the club hosted our second Padel MBA CPC (Certified Padel Coach) course. So, when it came to selecting a venue for the second case study in our series, Yorkshire seemed to be the perfect place with which to start 2023.
For Huddersfield’s head coach Nick Holloway communication has been the key to our successful partnership in West Yorkshire and he said: “We initially spoke to Game4Padel in 2019 and whatever they said they would do they have done. They have been so professional and very organised in every aspect, as an organisation they are easy to deal with.
“Primarily we have an excellent line of communication with Game4Padel. They have a direction they want us to go in terms of best practice – and a lot of that was on the (Padel MBA CPC) course, really everything you needed to know about being a head coach and running a club was already in the course content which was very helpful in being able to start from a strong position.
“Vincent Hivert and Peter Gordon were our main contact points. Peter came to all the contract meetings in 2019 and Vincent is my go-to man when I need operational help – he is very easy to deal with and always available.
“I am also very fortunate that the management team at Huddersfield Tennis Club is extremely strong, experienced, and so are Game4Padel and both management teams work closely together.
“During Covid we had monthly Zoom meetings and a WhatsApp group so there are different lines of communication and that has been a central tenet in helping our partnership flourish.”
As Game4Padel revealed last week our March CPC course is already fully subscribed while the June course is filling up nicely and places are now available for a third course this year (which will also be held at our state-of-the art Edinburgh Park facility in October).
As a graduate of the course Nick has no doubt that it is a game-changer for aspiring padel coaches and he offered this glowing testimonial of its unique and outstanding content: “I attended the Edinburgh course last year and it really was an amazing course. It was very intense and very informative and the information that we received was top class and the coaches were very professional. Really, I’d say it was faultless.
“The infrastructure that Game4Padel put in place was top class – they looked after us so well – it was an easy step to agree to them coming to Huddersfield as we are, geographically, right in the middle of the country and so we were perfect to host a PadelMBA course.
“Nathalie Gill, who is an excellent level four tennis coach, attended the course in Edinburgh and then I asked her to help me host the coaching course at Huddersfield and thankfully she jumped at the chance.
“We knew each other well having been tennis partners for years and now we are both MBA qualified coaches. The coaching side of things went really well and PadelMBA also ran clinics for players in the evenings and over the weekend and all my clients who attended absolutely loved the experience.”
Reflecting on Huddersfield’s 12-year association with padel Nick revealed that it has been a case of, as they say in Spain, Viva la revolución!
He said: “We refer to it as our padel revolution and this started in 2010 when a group of our members discovered the sport on holiday in Spain. By 2011 the club opened the first pay and play facility in the UK but due to the Pennine weather the courts only lasted until 2021!
“This coincided with Game4Padel approaching the club and we went into partnership with them at that point and really we have never looked back.
“At the moment we have more than 100 Game4Padel members and also about the same number of students – most of whom are from the Middle East and they love padel – it is their top sport now.
“So I’d say we have around 250 regular users of our two covered courts. We also have five by five team box leagues so that is 50 players minimum playing competitively.
“Externally, on a competitive front we are doing well with six players who all play for GB and last year at a GB selection meeting hosted at Harrogate another two lads were added so we now have seven male players who play for GB and are in the GB squad and I’m delighted to say that Nathalie Gill has played for the GB Ladies against Ireland. We also had two players representing GB in the Maccabiah Games last year.
“So that is eight GB internationals and we are in a really healthy place right now and much of that is down to our continued partnership with Game4Padel.”
If you would like to book a place on our June or October Edinburgh Park Certified Padel Coach course please click on the link below:
An overview of the three course modules can also be viewed by clicking the link below: