Chiswick’s Rocks Lane, home to Rocks Lane youth football team, recently replaced one of their 4g football pitches for a padel court. Further back, in the spring, Rocks Lane replaced their netball pitches with padel courts. More Padel courts have been springing up across the country with Rocks Lane opening two other Padel venues in Cornwall.

 

The padel courts cost £35 pounds per hour to hire, if you are not a member, and £30 if you are. The football pitches are the same price, £30 per hour, but you can share a football pitch with a lot more people. The demand for the padel courts are a lot higher as well, during the week, after working hours, they are almost always fully booked, whereas the football pitches aren’t. 

 

Although this encourages padel, an upcoming sport, many football players are outraged and disappointed with Rocks Lane’s decision to remove the football pitch, because this has forced a friday night fives league to move to thursday. Rocks Lane, for a number of years, was known for their popular football leagues on a Friday, and these were always very difficult to get into due to the high demand.Dixie Taylor, who plays for a team in Friday Night Fives said, ‘The new padel courts go against the reason for starting rocks lane in the first place, which is local football for children.’

 

In the future we could see a rise in Padel, with global demand and popularity for the sport rising, and companies more eager to invest in growing, exciting new prospects, like padel. The result of this could be a reduction of football, netball or tennis courts across the country.