How Did Your Padel Journey Begin?

After playing tennis all my life, I got a rotator cuff injury which meant I couldn’t serve overhead. Someone said, ‘Why don’t you try out padel, it’s an under arm serve?’ So I thought, great! I’ll give it a go. I played it on Holiday in Portugal and instantly fell in love with it. When I got home, they had just opened a court in Wilmslow. I was there every day, rain, wind or shine. 

Why Was JM Padel Academy Founded?

It started because I noticed how expensive padel was, and thought to myself, well, how on earth would children like where I came from and my background, be able to afford to play this game and get good at it. So we set up the padel Academy to make it more accessible for everybody, and I just sort of had a few ideas and my brother Niall got involved as well. From day one, it was just a case of while I was away on tour, I’ve often got nothing to do in the day anyway. So ring up a local padel club, ring up a few local schools, asking them to come over and play paddle. And a year in we’re at about 1000 kids. So it’s, going from strength to Strength. 

What’s The Best Way for People To Connect With You?

The best way to connect with our community and stay up-to-date is on our Instagram page. Give us a follow on there, and our email is on there as well. So any coaches that want to help out, any teachers who are desperate for their kids to play, any padel clubs who wouldn’t mind, you know, giving themselves a little bump up, getting a little bit of extra press by doing a nice thing, we’re happy to talk to everybody and any sponsors as well to help us fund the charity!

Favourite Part of the Journey So Far?

I think the favorite part of the journey has been just seeing kids like pick up a racket and have a laugh and play this game, which, especially if you’re like me, you’re not a naturally sporty person, it’s lovely just to be able to play a sport that’s bit of a leveler. You know, even if you’re about six years old, if you’re not good at football, it’s too late. So padel, it’s a brand new sport for all of us, and it’s been great to watch that, as well as watching some of the kids come through who have then gone onto our elite program and are training hard and who knows, could one day represent Team GB!

What’s Next for JM Padel Academy?

Well for the next couple of years, I’d love to have our own padel Academy somewhere that was accessible, an actual club of our own, where kids could come and play, and it would be affordable for families and for the community. You know, people who are differently able, people from different backgrounds, just to give everybody access to this sport, and hopefully just keep the number of kids rumbling on. We’ve nearly introduced 1000 kids and so it would be nice in the next year or so to start to hit the 5000 10,000 who knows how many we can get playing this sport, and from that, people finding a new hobby, these kids finding a new hobby that they might not have found without us and us finding an exceptional player who might go on to do it professionally.