How partnerships power World Padel Academy's prospering junior programmes
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The World Padel Academy's first British venue has quickly become a thriving community hub thanks to partnerships with local schools and its next door neighbours — Mansfield Town Football Club.
World Padel Academy (WPA) has clubs in Dubai and Bahrain which, as the name suggests, place great emphasis on building strong junior and adult academies.
That academy ethos has been embedded from the beginning at WPA in Mansfield, a four-court facility right next to Mansfield Town's One Call Stadium. Linking with the football club's Community Trust has been crucial in engaging demographics who may otherwise never have had the opportunity to try out the game.
Since December 2024, WPA has welcomed over 100 primary school children, over 60 teenagers, more than 100 college students (including those with learning difficulties), over 200 children from Mansfield Town Community Trust holiday camps and over 250 from the Community Trust's Holiday and Food (HAF) programme for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
All took part free of charge, supported by sports coaches form the Community Trust who were given training by WPA's own coaches to enable them to activate padel sessions at the venue.
James Bowring, Managing Director of World Padel Academy UK, said: "Being partners of Mansfield Town Community Trust is brilliant for enabling us to reach all sorts of different demographics of children because they've got the well-established relationships and outreach programmes already in place.
"Looking across the industry, we really saw the gap between who's coming to play padel and who's not in terms of demographic types. But in Mansfield, we've seen absolutely everybody between low-level income and very affluent people, girls and boys, men and women."
The Community Trust now has its own padel rackets and balls and delivers the sport in PE and after-school sport sessions in its network of 30 schools in the area. The Community Trust has even accessed some funding to deliver sessions for girls, pupils with special educational needs (SEN) and others from disadvantaged and challenging backgrounds.
"Our relationship with the Community Trust is really important," said Bowring. "They are our promoters, in a sense. When doing outreach work, padel operators might think they have to engage with 25 schools, but you don't necessarily need to do that.
"Partnering with an organisation that already has that network and offering them an accessible, fun, family-friendly sport is such a natural fit. Some of the kids we've engaged have come back and had a go with their family. It's been a brilliant awareness exercise too.
"This game, like no other, is one you can come and play with your siblings, parents, granny and grandpa or whoever. We need to make sure everyone is aware of that. Engaging with children keeps the pipeline going and hopefully there's then a secondary spend of people wanting to come and play at different times."
One demographic where WPA has seen particularly successful engagement is among girls.
From day one, WPA opened junior academies for 4-7, 8-11 and 12-16-year-olds for girls and boys in allotted Saturday morning slots, led by head coach Hugo da Silva. Some boys in the top age category have now progressed into a separate competitive squad and been replaced by new recruits.
But there were virtually no girls in the oldest academy age group, so the club created a separate girls' academy for 11-16-year-olds, with some specific conditions to make them feel as comfortable and empowered as possible.
On Sundays between 4pm-7pm, WPA is now made into a female-only venue. Up to 16 girls take part in the the academy sessions (recruited through outreach programmes in Years 8 and 9 in local secondary schools) and extra courts are reserved for mums or other women who want to play whilst unobserved by men.
Coaching at girls' academy sessions is led by Empower Padel ambassador Alison Lauder with strong support from Lisa Hague, Laura Watson and Rachael Biggs. Hague is a grief coach and wife of ex-Celtic and Scotland midfielder Kris Commons, while Watson and Biggs are padel mums who are both PE teachers. All of them are passionate advocates of the sport and its positive impact on girls when delivered in the right way.
Hague said: "Padel is a great sport to make friends and access a support network as well as grow your confidence and enhance your general wellbeing, which is so important for teenage girls.
"I am a life coach and I am here to offer support and encouragement to the girls, so that when they come to WPA they have a safe space to learn, have fun and talk if they want to."
It's more than just court time and coaching. The girls feel safe to play, talk, have fun and be part of something. It gives them ownership.
Bowring added: "Because there are no boys around it totally changes the sessions into something that's quite calm, relaxed and with no messing about. We emphasised that the session was about fun, trying it out without obligation and that they could bring a friend along, as we identified that was important to them."
WPA has high ambitions for its thriving junior programmes. "We want to create padel champions," says Bowring, citing Mansfield's sporting legends, double Olympic champion Rebecca Adlington and former Ryder Cup golfer Oliver Wilson, as inspirations.
"We're taking a financial hit on the junior activity but we're prepared to do that to support the children in this town. The academies are not hit and miss; they're always on. It's something they can rely on.
"The town has absorbed padel almost straight away. It's been amazing to see. Through our outreach programmes and partnerships we want everyone in our community to experience this game."
