May I introduce our new Head Padel Coach at Golf It! Glasgow. I caught up with Craig recently and asked him to tell us a little about himself. Over to you, Craig:   “I grew up playing tennis and football, and in recent years have done a lot of running and cycling. I first came across padel in 2017 at Thistle Padel Club in Edinburgh.   “I lived in Vietnam for 4 years teaching English. I wanted to continue teaching but move more towards sports and outdoor education – so padel was a perfect fit. In 2022, I completed the first LTA Padel course and that decided me to go headfirst i ..read more

From left: Ben Gudzulak, Martin Calvert, Paul Jepson and Nick Holloway – all G4P Huddersfield and Yorkshire players who also play for Team GB Seniors. Following Natalie’s exciting news (previous blog), and not to be outdone – Nick Holloway (above right), G4P Head Coach at Huddersfield LTSC, has been asked to Co-Captain the Great Britain Seniors team for the FIP World Championships in Spain next month with close friend and long standing padel partner Ben Gudzulak.   Nick has been a regular on the GB Men’s Senior Team – playing several times before at this level. (The first Senior GB Te ..read more

Huge congratulations to Game4Padel Coach Natalie Gill who some of you will recognise as a coach at Huddersfield Lawn Tennis & Squash Club. Natalie has been selected to play for Team GB Seniors at The FIP Seniors World Padel Championships at La Nucia, Alicante next month, and we wish her and the GB Padel Teams every success. Pictured above recently at our training base at Oliva Nova, Valencia, Natalie with Padelmba's Master Tutors, Pablo Franco and Nino Sánchez-Alcaraz who were coaching the CPC+ course that Natalie was attending (see previous blog). If you are local to Huddersfie ..read more

From left, back: Jon Spinks, Omar Shamal, Nick Holloway, Vincent Hivert, Matt Allen, Nico Benitez, Karen Hazzard, Mark Cracknell, Nick Brooks, Natalie Gill. Front: James Rose, Nino Sánchez, Pablo Franco and Ximo Piera (G4P's new Head Coach at Oliva Nova). Regular readers will know how committed Game4Padel is to developing the fledgling UK padel industry – not just by developing infrastructure, but by training and mentoring the first generation of UK padel coaches. And our deepening partnership with Padelmba is helping us to do just that. This weekend was all about investing in the G4P coachi ..read more

We were delighted to welcome some of the tutors and members of sportscotland Fit For Girls programme to our courts at Edinburgh Park in January. Fit for Girls is a national programme developed in partnership between sportscotland and the Youth Sport Trust to help meet the needs of girls aged 11-18 years old and the sport and physical activity workforce in Scotland. Tutors aim to inspire and empower girls and young women to create local change in their schools, clubs and communities by developing their self esteem and confidence – helping them to find their voices to help other girls ..read more

Padel is the world’s fastest growing sport – and January is a great time to try something new, so put padel on your To Do list and be part of the revolution.  Padel is highly sociable. Played in doubles pairs, players are much closer on the court than in tennis, so there is typically much more laughter, conversation and banter. Perfect for lifting your spirits in January.  Padel is a great aerobic workout. The ball is in play, on average, for around 50 minutes in every hour, versus about 15 minutes in tennis. More movement equals higher heart rate, so ideal for getting fit and smas ..read more

Quick introduction… my name is Ryan Harrower – I am employed as Racquets Development Officer within Edinburgh Council’s Sport and Outdoor Learning Unit. I have been involved in sports coaching (predominantly tennis and badminton) and development for the last 25 years and have focused a large part of my career developing schools and junior programmes.   I completed the Padelmba CPC and CPC Kids coaching qualifications this year and a new partnership with Game4Padel will see us introduce Padel to Edinburgh school pupils and assist in growing the G4P junior coaching programme.   Gettin ..read more

Famously social, padel is an ideal pursuit for those wishing to spend treasured time with family and friends over the festive season. And for many, mid-winter will provide the downtime to try padel for the first time. So we asked Mark Cracknell, for his Top 5 Tips for Beginners. Mark is a Padelmba-trained padel coach at Ipswich Sports Club. The East Anglian sporting institution has built a membership of over 300 new padel members since April 2022, after G4P installed just one pop-up padel court. Mark shared: “With padel taking hold throughout the UK we are seeing lots of people new to the spo ..read more

GAME4PADEL is delighted to share details of our new Junior Development Programme. Our ground-breaking padel education project will be run by Game4Padel's Growth & Participation Director Vincent Hivert in conjunction with Edinburgh City Council’s Racket Development Officer Ryan Harrower (above left), and will initially look to introduce padel and its benefits to 10 target schools (seven primary and three secondary) within the Scottish capital’s boundaries. The primary programme, now rolling out across 30 classes spanning P3, 4 and 5 and reaching out to almost 900 pupils, is the first padel ..read more

Game4Padel ambassador Tia Norton has spent a recent training block at Game4Padel's sun-soaked Spanish venue, where she worked with Oliva Nova’s head coach Miguel Mateu, as she ramped up her comeback from a knee injury. The golden girl of British padel – who won the inaugural US Pro Padel League in the summer with Las Vegas Smash – hopes that the training stint at our flagship 7-court venue by the Mediterranean will be the first of many. The GB international is also confident her hard work in the sun has provided the perfect foundation to crank up her bid to crack the world top-100 rankings by ..read more