Pickleball for all - to combat loneliness & keep us fit - Alexandra & Victoria Recs

Introduce pickleball courts to both Alexandra Rec and Victoria Rec to combat loneliness and improve our fitness! This is cheap and easy: Simply draw pickleball lines on the tennis courts. No other work is needed. Pickleball and tennis players share courts all over North America. For an example, see here. It's a fair allocation of precious public space. For Alexandra Rec, the unused basketball court area could also be repurposed as 1-2 pickleball courts. I would personally pay (or raise money) for mobile nets if we could get lines painted!

What is pickleball? It's a cross between table tennis, badminton, and tennis. It's played on a court that's about a third the size of a tennis court. But there are two really important things about pickleball: It's VERY easy to learn (even for people who are not sporty) AND it's almost always played in doubles. Click on the link to see how it's played.

The pandemic has done a lot of damage to our mental health. People are lonelier than ever before. And we also have an obesity problem in the UK. Pickleball solves all three of these problems in spades. I experienced this myself when I played pickleball for 3 weeks last summer in New Hampshire and became a pickleball fan. Here's what I saw that convinced me that pickleball can be part of the solution to Kingston & Surbiton's physical & mental health problems:

I had heard of pickleball but didn't know how to play. I showed up last summer at the local courts in a small town in New Hampshire (US). Someone said hi and taught us how to play. In 15 minutes, ALL of us were playing a game - we ranged in age and ability from (15 to 75) with varying degrees of mobility and racket experience. We played for half an hour and Jesse (our impromptu coach) told us that people show up and play community games every day at 9am-1pm and 5pm-8pm. Show up and queue up. All welcome. And FREE!!! We bought 4 rackets and 3 balls for US $40 on Amazon.

I played every day for 3 weeks. The fact that it was played in doubles on a small court allowed for more talking and banter during the game. Pickleball also has an inclusive ethos. Everyone of all abilities was welcome. But what I saw off court was much more special: strangers became friends over the course of a few hours of playing and chatting between games. Most of them were 60+ because this was a retirement community. But there were a number of regulars in their 20s and 30s too. I had never seen so many cross-generational friendships like this.

Players talked about their kids, their lives, and shared advice on how to manage cancer treatment, how to help their aging parents and help their kids who had addictions. It was even possible to talk politics in a state where it was deemed a toxic topic. The Conway pickleball courts had magically produced an inclusive, kind, caring community that embraced everyone - with a shared love of pickleball as its reason for being. People became friends on and off the court. They had parties together. They fished together. In 3 weeks, I met more people and made more friends than in twenty years of visiting the area.

It's not just me saying this. There's lots of evidence to back it up. See this academic study from Educational Gerontology or this one from the Journal of Positive Psychology.

We can create this same kind of feeling in Surbiton. We already have the court space. And we have the community spirit. Let's do it!

FYI - I have nothing to gain from this. I am not a professional pickleball lobbyist ;)
I just see the potential for pickleball to be transformational for Surbiton, for London, and for all of the UK.