Smashing it! How Bicester became a UK hotbed for junior padel development
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It doesn't take long after arriving at SmashPadel Bicester to understand how the club has rapidly built a nationwide reputation for nurturing outstanding young padel players.
The five-court venue – which was named LTA Oxfordshire Club of the Year 2024 – is situated right next to the M40 in the grounds of Bicester Hotel Golf & Spa, some distance from the nearest local housing — and yet its team of managers and coaches have developed community bonds as strong as any padel club in the country.
Partnerships with local schools have established a pipeline of wide-eyed pupils eager to try out the sport. From there, they can join a pathway that can takes them from 'Little Smashers' (4-6-year-olds) right up to the club's Junior Performance squad who compete at national and European level, which attracts players from as far afield as Leicestershire, Cheltenham and Guildford several times a week.
Along this pathway, each junior is given his or her own bespoke Individual Development Plan. Their progress within cognitive, physical, tactical and technical skill categories is constantly reviewed, with feedback from child, coach and parent backed up by video footage from coaching sessions and matches.
The content of each player's coaching is shaped around their Individual Development Plan, with 360 feedback crunched into average scores across the different skill categories which highlights areas most in need of improvement. It's a highly strategic, science-backed, data-led, player-focused philosophy.
The SmashPadel Junior Pathway is split into six parts:
Smashers:
- Little Smashers (4-6-year-olds)
- Mighty Smashers (7-9-year-olds)
- Mega Smashers (9-12-year-olds)
Juniors:
- Starting from 10-year-olds
Junior academy:
- Currently 20 players
- Players of regional and national standard
Junior performance:
- Currently five players
- Players of national and European competition standard
Each stage of the junior pathway and indeed every community initiative (examples include 'Sofa to Smash' for less active people and 'Evergreens' for pensioners) is led by a coach whose profile precisely suits that particular demographic. The coach-to-player ratio is extremely high. In fact, SmashPadel's mission is "to be recognised as the UK's leading coach-led padel operator."
If the strategy all sounds a bit serious, you only need to visit SmashPadel to see that the tone of its delivery is quite the opposite: they have over 120 juniors who are not just accomplished padel players but rounded, confident, motivated, healthy and happy young people, with relationships of total trust and genuine warmth between coach, player and parent.
"We don't do anything ad-hoc — there is strategy behind everything," says SmashPadel's Chief Commercial Officer, Carson Russell, whose background includes being CEO of London Scottish rugby club.
He adds: "One of the big changes in sport in the last 20 years has been using evidence-based practice. You can't just say, 'I think we should...' Science, data and analysis behind what you're doing is crucial. In padel, the world's best players are Spanish and Argentinian, so we've gone to see how their coaches work and what's driving their players' performance.
"Of course, you've got to have coaches experienced enough to interpret the data properly so it's sending you down the right path in terms of the techniques, skills and tactics you should be practising. That's the basis of how we work."
The coaching framework, lesson plans and knowledge are shared between coaches across the SmashPadel estate, which also includes clubs in Oxford, Whitstable and Mid-Sussex, with a new club opening imminently in Cardiff and another two by the end of the year.
"Bicester has set the template," says Russell. "This will be the framework for our new head coach in Cardiff and all the clubs we open in the future, but how they deliver those sessions will be up to them. We video everything so we can share best practice, but at the same time we don't want clones. We want to give each coach the space to put their personal stamp on delivery."
Miguel Carmalho, SmashPadel's Padel Coaching Manager, heads up the implementation of the strategy with the club's juniors in Bicester, backed up by Gordon Dunn, Annabelle Denly, Lupe Arribas Blanco, Gary Taverner-Smith, Ben Cox and Josh Ousley.
All members of the coaching team have similar Individual Development Plans to the players, with each undergoing bespoke CPD on a rolling basis which can include visiting overseas padel academies and learning from their coaches and even shadowing coaches from other sports. The club is even hosting a coaching conference later this year to spread this good practice.
From our Little Smashers right up to our Performance squad, our aim in its simplest form is to foster a love of padel.
"We're constantly challenging the coaches on the quality of the programme and upskilling them in whatever areas and ways we can," says Russell.
Coaches Miguel and Gordon recently led a half-term visit to the Conpas Padel Academy in Madrid for 10 children in the Junior Academy and Performance squads, as well as group trips to the Netherlands and Belgium for FIP Promises competitions.
Gordon's 14-year-old son Andrew is part of the Bicester Performance squad and has reached four FIP Promises finals in a row (winning his first title in Belgium in early July) and recently became the first British junior player to break into the world's top 50.
Another Bicester tyro, 14-year-old Josh Hodgins, has progressed so quickly both on and off court that he's been invited to help coach younger players in the Little Smashers programme. Such is his dedication that each week, Josh travels to Bristol to train with his playing partner Aidan Hawkey, who makes a similar journey from Cornwall.
Josh's mum Vicky, whose younger son also plays at Bicester, said: "Padel has taken over our life — but in a good way! They're having a blast. They're fit physically and mentally, they're having so much fun and they've made loads of friends. Josh even chose Spanish as his GCSE option because he wants to be able to go and play and coach in Madrid!"
Behind its highly strategic and multi-layered approach to junior development, there is one central tenet running through every programme and coaching session. As Russell says: "From our Little Smashers right up to our Performance squad, our aim in its simplest form is to foster a love of padel."
The beaming smiles of children, parents and coaches indicate that SmashPadel are doing a pretty good job.
