Scotland has its first dedicated padel directory, giving players a place to find all the information they need about clubs, coaches and events in Scottish padel.
Padel.scot was founded by a padel addict who goes by the name Cham. He told The Padel Paper all about the directory’s origins, the process of its creation, from brainwave to rollout.
Cham has played a lot of padel over the last year and a half, often playing up to 20 hours per week. In doing so, he has built connections locally and identified a gap in information, and a way to plug it.
“When I first started playing, there weren’t many venues around, so it was relatively easy to manage bookings and find people to play with,” he explains. “Since then, the sport has absolutely boomed in Scotland, particularly in and around the Glasgow area.
“I started to notice some common frustrations around discoverability, people struggling to find nearby venues, coaches, or even simply knowing what activities were happening across different clubs.
“The aim of Padel.Scot has always been to make padel more discoverable for everyone in Scotland. I love Scotland, I love the people here, and I love padel, so the idea was simply to connect those things together and help more people find opportunities to play the sport.”
With the goal to make information as easy as possible to find, the directory has evolved from simply highlighting which clubs are where (as well as when and where new ones are opening) to making the process of finding a suitable game easier, locating an event to attend or a coach to get in touch with.
“One feature allows users to input their location and how often they play, which then recommends venues that might suit them best,” Cham explains.
Another popular feature is the activities page, which brings together padel activities happening across multiple venues in Scotland.
‘One platform makes a big difference…’
Cham adds: “One of the challenges in the sport at the moment is that different venues use different apps and booking platforms, which makes it difficult for players to see what’s happening at a glance.
“The activities page solves that by aggregating that information in one place, so players can easily check things like upcoming Americanos or other sessions across several clubs.
“I’ve also integrated LTA events held in Scotland into the platform to make those easier to discover as well.
“Because the data behind the site is structured carefully, users can filter things quite specifically, by distance, court type, price range, availability times, activities run by particular coaches and more.
“With around 26 active clubs across Scotland, bringing all of that information together into one platform makes a big difference.”
From January to the end of February, Scotland’s padel directory had evolved from an idea to a fully-fledged product, helped by Cham’s background in technology and a gathering of “rich and accurate information” with a hand from Scottish coach Craig McBride.
As new venues continue to crop up, Cham hopes to help facilitate the country’s love of the game, as well as its growth.
“The sport is still relatively young here compared to other countries, but the enthusiasm around it is incredible,” he explains.
“If the directory can help more people discover local venues, connect with coaches, and find activities more easily, then it’s doing exactly what it was designed to do.
“Padel is one of the most social and welcoming sports I’ve come across, and hopefully Padel.Scot can play a small role in helping that community continue to grow across Scotland.”
