SPORT: Play Pickleball
Thinking of a new way to get active? Try Pickleball – Wigan Council's Be Well team host Pickleball sessions, held at Robin Park leisure centre, Wigan, and at leisure centres across the borough. Pickleball is a racket or paddle sport in which two players (singles) or four players (doubles) hit a perforated, hollow plastic ball (also known as a wiffle) with paddles over a 34-inch-high (0.86 m) net until one side is unable to return the ball or commits a rule infraction.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 So my name's Gary Shaw, I work for the Be Well Back to Sport team and Weight Management team
00:04 and today we're here at Robin Park. So this is a good game of pickleball that we're going to
00:09 introduce yourselves to. So this is a paddle that you play with and this is a whiffle and
00:14 obviously it's played over a badminton court size. The good thing about pickleball it's all inclusive
00:20 so it doesn't matter on your age or your ability, everyone's more than welcome to so we target
00:26 audience from 16 plus all the way up to our oldest participant which is probably about 86-87.
00:31 And the good thing about it is it's played over a badminton size court.
00:38 We normally play in doubles because singles it's a bit harder to play.
00:43 You start at the back of the court so it's a bit like short tennis in a way but you play it where
00:50 you serve from under the underarm so you're from the paddle through and then you're going to land it
00:55 diagonally on the opposite box on the other side. So we started a couple of years ago pickleball we
01:02 didn't know how well it was going to take off so at the minute of our sessions we do Robin Park
01:06 Leisure Centre, Leigh Leisure Centre, we do one at Averton High School and we also do Ashton Leisure
01:11 Centre. So this week alone we have 32 at Leigh Leisure Centre which is full max capacity. Here
01:17 today at Robin Park we've got max capacity 32 we're full again. Ashton Leisure Centre last night we
01:22 had 16 we only have 16 places and tonight we've got 16 places at Averton and that's fully booked
01:27 again. So every single week you see the same faces but you also see new ones as well and then they
01:32 just follow me, Ray the Burro doing pickleball every single week. I think don't be put off by
01:38 if you come and you see someone playing a game and you think oh they're really good or they've
01:42 played a few times and stuff like that it doesn't matter because they've got everyone starting off
01:45 as a beginner and all our sessions are targeted getting you back into a sport that you've either
01:50 played before or you've never played before in your life and everyone's nice and socialised
01:55 with everyone so everyone's more than welcome to come down and give it a go. Obviously you'll come
01:59 down and you'll fill in a medical form just to make sure everything's okay and then we can get
02:03 you on court and play the fabulous game of pickleball.