Almost 4,000 Mancunians have tasted padel since the opening of Club de Padel six weeks ago in the centre of the UK’s second-most populous city.
Club de Padel’s four-court facility opened in the emerging New Jackson area of Manchester in front of the towering Deansgate skyline just before Christmas. Co-founder David Blake says it has already “gone absolutely bonkers.”
Padel’s UK boom has already seen the sport go from 6,000 active players and 115 courts in 2019 to around 350 courts and an estimated 90,000 players today. The LTA expects those figures to rise to 1000 courts and 600,000 players within the next three years.
Blake, 37, who founded Club de Padel alongside friends James Wigglesworth and Matt McKinlay, said: “It’s gone absolutely bonkers. We’re selling out on Tuesdays and Wednesdays in January. We didn’t think we’d get to that point until it got warmer.”
The North West is gradually filling with padel venues with Fylde Tennis and Lowther Padel in Lytham, The Wirral Padel Club, Alderley Park, three courts at Liverpool Cricket Club, courts at David Lloyd Cheadle and Trafford, The Northern Club and perhaps the best known, The Padel Club in Wilmslow, which is preparing to open a 10-court facility at TraffordCity.
Club de Padel co-founder Blake says there is already impetus to open more venues of their own: “We’ve only been open for six weeks and [businesses] are already coming to us to open more. We’ve also been approached about opening in other cities.”
Manchester was relatively late to the padel party. Alberto Cubero Torregrosa, 32, is the head coach at Club de Padel. Having moved from Malaga to pursue a career in architecture in 2019, he became Manchester’s highest ranked player.
Alberto, a 25-year padel veteran, saw limited opportunities to play his beloved sport in his new home.
“When I moved to Manchester I started competing around the UK,” he said. “But I was the only person from Manchester. We didn’t even have padel courts in the city. When I wanted to play padel I was travelling to Huddersfield, Middlesbrough, Derby, London. I did some coaching in Harrogate too.”
The Spaniard (pictured below) has continued to work as an architect alongside his new role at the club. But padel has now become a profession as well as a hobby for Torregrosa. He said: “At the moment you cannot just live as a padel player and you have to combine earning money as a coach because prize money is not that high. But I am confident with the sport growing, maybe we can have British players playing full time in five years. The national federations are working on it. I am confident it will be an Olympic sport.”
The head coach is not the club’s only Spanish connection. Blake first discovered padel while on holiday in Barcelona. “Me and my wife, who is also a co-owner, were going out for dinner. I saw what I thought were tennis balls, and I saw the metal and the glass and thought ‘this isn’t tennis’,” he said. “I’ve always loved racket sports but I thought I’d played all of them. I was transfixed.”
Spain has more than 20,000 courts and six million players. It is second only to football as the country’s most played sport. Having witnessed Spanish padel fever, Blake said: “We just thought Manchester is such a globally famous sporting city, how can it not have somewhere to play the fastest growing sport in the world?”
As well as providing a space for skilled padel players, the Deansgate venue is also attracting beginners, many of whom take part in weekly classes. The ‘Padel One’ course, which teaches new players the basics of the sport, sold out almost immediately.
Tom, 27, is a first-time player: “I heard a few of my friends talking about this place, I thought I should give it a go. It’s a good way to socialise. I get the tram into Deansgate. It’s a great location everyone.”
Local worker James Wallbank, 47, added: “It’s the second time I’ve played and I really enjoy it. I work just around the corner and I’m hoping to come down again. I can see people playing from my window at work.
“I play other racket sports, but squash is a bit too hard. I’m not getting any younger so I want to get some good exercise and have fun at the same time.”
