By Sam Basford
Pickleball has made it onto the UK university sports scene, with Newcastle University becoming one of the first to start its own pickleball club.
Second-year students Riah Harris and Aleks Frost have made it their mission to introduce pickleball to the student population of Newcastle University regardless of their sporting background.
Having met just before the start of their second years, Aleks and Riah concocted a plan to book a court and kickstart pickleball in the university’s sports centre. Quickly, friends and colleagues caught wind of the new sport, and wanted to get involved.
The club launched officially in September and was ratified by the Student Union within a couple of months. So far, Riah and Aleks have introduced pickleball to over 50 students, and more clubs and societies are now interested in having a go.
“When the club started, we didn’t have as much equipment as we needed, so we would also play short tennis alongside pickleball so that everyone could keep active,” said Riah, a Level 2 Tennis Coach turned pickleball fanatic. “We were helped out by Pickleball England and the sports centre itself, so now we can have more people playing pickleball in each session.
“Pickleball has become so popular that I think the club will become solely pickleball, rather than pickleball and short tennis as it is currently, which is amazing!
“Pickleball is now my main sport. I now only play tennis recreationally since discovering pickleball! I’m really pleased that we have managed to build a club made up of people from all sorts of sporting backgrounds, and some with none at all!
“It was a challenge initially to get people to come along because of the strange name, but now we have been recognised by the other racket sports clubs which is amazing.”
Newcastle is one of a handful of UK universities with pickleball clubs, with Swansea, Bangor, Aberdeen and the University of Central Lancashire in Preston all providing opportunities for students to play.
Riah’s hope is that as more universities build a pickleball structure, it will lead to matches between university clubs and potentially a nationwide competition. “We definitely want to play in more tournaments as a team where we can,” she said. “We’ve entered a team into the DUPR squads tournament coming up at the end of February, and we would like to enter more teams in the future.”
One barrier to their growth has been the court availability at the sports centre. Pickleball has two sessions a week, both taking place between 2-4pm on weekdays. Aleks and Riah remain undeterred as they both recently completed their Pickleball England Leaders Certification, which has given them the additional skills and confidence to continue introducing pickleball to the masses.
We hope to see the growth trend in universities continue, and can’t wait to be reporting in years to come of a Pickleball University Club Championship!
