A new five-court pickleball facility is set to open in Nottinghamshire this month – under the name of the Let’s Dink Pickleball Centre.
Based at the Caunton Lawn Tennis Club, near Southwell, construction of the courts will be completed in mid-October, with the full branding – including colour-schemed courts – to be applied once curing and weather allow.
The tennis club had already applied for planning permission for the new courts but were seeking funding – and that was where pickleball fanatics Mark and Deb Pearce came in, with the collaboration proving a successful and mutually beneficial one.
“Deb first went along to a taster session at Caunton Tennis Club in January ‘24 and came back and proclaimed that I had to give it a try – neither of us come from a racquet sport background,” Mark tells Pickleball 52. “I’ve played football and cricket, Deb has played hockey and we both enjoyed a round of golf when work and children didn’t take our time. I gave it a try the following week and became hooked. We played as regularly as sessions would allow and entered our first tournament ‘Dinking in the Big Hall’ at Nottingham University in 2024.
“There we learned that this was a much bigger sport than we realised and that perhaps we weren’t as good as we thought we were – we lost all of our matches so decided to go on a journey to better ourselves!”
Since then, they’ve played with Pickleball Nottingham, and even jetted off to LA to get some one-to-one coaching with Kenadi Hance. Both are now pursuing coaching and officiating qualifications, which they’ll be putting to good use in Caunton.
The facility will offer both membership and pay-and-play opportunities as well as a range of other activities including coaching programmes and coach-led sessions – courtesy of James Harding and Pickleball4All – with a key aim being to develop and grow a junior section.
