Former Leeds and Sheffield United defender Matt Kilgallon was the star of the inaugural ‘Yorkshire Classico’ – a charity padel tournament featuring current and ex-players at the White Rose county’s biggest football clubs.
Over 200 spectators turned up to Sheffield’s Club de Padel last week for the tournament, a fundraiser for Weston Park Cancer Charity, with four-man teams representing Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesday, Rotherham United, Doncaster Rovers, Barnsley and Leeds United.
Pairs games were played to 16 points, the table aptly ending with the two Sheffield sides in the finals after 12 rounds, which the Blades made light work of. There was some great talent on show, including the likes of Marvin Johnson and Seb Carole, but one man stole the show: former Blades defender Kilgallon, now aged 42.
Spectators largely flocked to wherever Kilgallon was playing, partly because he was partnered with one of Sheffield’s favourites sons, Billy Sharp (who became the oldest ever scorer of a hat-trick the previous weekend by netting three for Doncaster against Peterborough) and partly because it was near impossible to take eyes off the power and precision of Kilgallon, a man with a 5.6 Playtomic rating.
The Padel Paper made a beeline for the former England U21 star. “I think everyone’s in love with padel,” he said. “I play as much as possible.
“I’ve played about five LTA tournaments. I’ve done a couple of over-40s, I’ve won one, been beaten in the final twice, then the over-40s Grade 2 I played in was next level.
“You think you’re a good player and then you go in and you’re playing against two Spanish lads, and you’re like ‘woah, I’m in trouble here,’ or two under-21 Great Britain players and you don’t get many points.”
Kilgallon revealed he is now a licensed LTA padel coach. “[The offer’s there] if any of the footballers want a little lesson, I know I’ve handed a few out today, like!” he chuckled.
“The thing is with footballers and ex-footballers, you have to put another shot in, because the movement is still so good, they’ve still got the feet from football. Normally some shots I’ve played, I think ‘he ain’t getting that back,’ but because they’re still fast and read the game, they get it back.”
The event itself raised more than £2,000 on ticket sales alone, plus raffle tickets and other donations, and co-organiser Tom Jenkins told us there’s a plan for more Yorkshire Classicos.
He said: “We’ll do a little bit of reflecting after this first one. Initial ideas are doing another couple in end of September, October at the next international break after the World Cup. Potentially one in Sheffield and we’ve talked about doing one over in Manchester and integrating some North West clubs.”
