Pure Pickleball have enjoyed a sensational 2025 – and there’s more of the same to come next year.
And one of its driving forces, Colin Heath, says pickleball has been “life-changing” for him – so much so that he’s now the proud owner of a silver medal in his category from the recent English Nationals.
He discovered pickleball when he was seeking out unique sports to take into schools and deliver with the children, having already tried out quidditch and Tough Mudder.
He’d played badminton and enjoyed short tennis in his younger years, and thought pickleball would be something schoolchildren would be able to pick up – and decided to try it out himself.
From there, he was one of the founders of South Cheshire Pickleball.
“The uptake was absolutely phenomenal,” he says. He met Chris Beaumont about a year into that project, when the club had around 130 players, and began the search for what would become the Pure Pickleball centre.
The venue they picked was a school sports hall that had never before been rented out.
“Literally they just said yes on the spot,” he explains. “We marked out pickleball courts within a couple of weeks, and we were playing within three weeks.”
Now he and his team are delivering Allstars pickleball on a weekly basis in around five schools.
“It’s really fitting for primary school children,” he says. “We see success pretty much straight away, which is not something that you can say with other racket sports – and we’re talking from reception age.”
And with the Pure Pythons (“an absolutely legendary group of people”) representing the brand brilliantly in the Premier Pickleball League, Colin’s planning for more growth in the months to come – and hoping to go into more schools.
“We’re not even a year old,” he points out.
“When you go to events like the Nationals and the Open and people see your t-shirt, they’ll say, ‘Oh, you’re from Pure Pickleball.’ It just shows you that it’s working.
“The numbers don’t lie. Most of our sessions, week in, week out, are sold out.
“It’s testament to Chris and his coaching, but we do work together on it and we’ve developed it together. So I’ll take a little bit of credit!”
