Smash hit sport lands in Ringsend
By Dylan Tighe
Photos by Ian Davis
Irish company Druid Padel is on a mission to bring padel to the masses. In a collaboration with SPORTSCO, the facility now hosts two immaculate outdoor courts, available to new and existing members.
Padel is typically played in doubles on an enclosed court that’s smaller than a tennis court. It shares the same scoring system as tennis, but crucially, allows the ball to be played off the walls, like in squash.
According to The Financial Times, “Padel’s smaller courts and use of walls make both beginners and seasoned players feel like they’re in the same league”.
I sat down in SPORTSCO’s café with company directors Edel Clarke and Eileen Ring – the dynamic duo behind Druid Padel – to hear about their ambitions to establish padel as a community sport.
Edel Clarke – a professional tennis coach affiliated with the Rafa Nadal Academy in Mallorca – stresses that for the sport to succeed, “it needs to be within the community… We want padel to be accessible for everybody”, she says, “not just for the wealthy”.
Druid Padel also has ambitions to expand throughout Ireland, and in sport as in business, collaboration is key. “If you can find a good partner it’s a game-changer, so we’re very lucky”, Edel says. “SPORTSCO is a fantastic starting point for us because it’s a community-driven venue [and] it’s a great location…”
Eileen Ring, who has an extensive background in sports coaching as well as PR, sales and management, credits Lorna Brady, CEO of SPORTSCO, for having “the foresight to see that padel was something that would work in this area”, and says that “all the staff have been so supportive”.
That foresight seems to be very much on the money. As Edel explains, “Thirty million people globally play padel in 90 different countries. It’s the number one sport in the UAE. It’s the second biggest sport in Spain and Portugal after soccer [and] it’s number one in Sweden so it’s growing right across the globe”.
This global appeal is reflected in Druid Padel’s team. Operations Manager Marta Giner, from Barcelona, and in-house coach Lukas Contreras, from Chile, are on the ground at SPORTSCO offering bespoke advice and coaching. As Marta explains, “For a lot of people, it’s still a new sport, so they really don’t know what to expect. It’s good to be present and show them”.
As Edel says, “Most clubs wouldn’t have a coach on tap”. “[Lukas] is here every day to help promote and develop the game. [He’s] a free roaming coach available to say, ‘Is everything OK? Do you know the rules? Do you know how it works?’ We think that’s really important. If people want to book a lesson, that’s also fine…Lukas is accessible to SPORTSCO members”.
For Marta, the advantage of being part of a leisure centre such as SPORTSCO is the opportunity for players to meet. “People are mixing with different ages and different nationalities [and] it’s a very good mix”, she says. “It makes me happy when I see four members playing together who didn’t know each other before padel”.
While it’s crucial for the company that the sport be accessible and inclusive, they aim to provide SPORTSCO members with the experience one would expect from the most exclusive of clubs.
Druid Padel is the sole distributor in Ireland of Padel Galis courts, which are used in the World Padel Tour and Premier Padel competitions, memorably described by Edel as “the Rolls-Royce of Padel courts”. “Last week we opened two courts in The K Club”, she says, “exactly the same courts as the SPORTSCO courts”.
In order to play, at least two players must be members of SPORTSCO. Members can bring one guest each, with a flat rate of €40 per hour (€10 per person) for court rental. Rackets can be hired for €5 and balls can be purchased for €8 when booking the court via the Playtomic app.
Edel emphasises that padel is a sport for all ages. “We have a children’s programme that will be running during the summer, as part of the summer camps here”, she says. “If we want some Olympians, we need to get some kids involved, which is very important… “We also want to reach out to the senior community”, she says, “because everyone can play padel”.
As Edel concludes, “Once you start playing it’s really difficult to stop”.
All details on membership plans and booking can be found at www.sportsco.ie or +353 1 668 7022.
See also: www.druidpadel.com
