How Padel Helped This British Club Grow Squash

Nestled in leafy Cheltenham, East Gloucester (Glos) Club is providing an interesting case study in how traditional racket sports clubs can embrace the rapid growth of padel without necessarily diminishing the sports already established within them.

For die-hard squash supporters, the rise of padel can sometimes feel like a threat. Whether its extraordinary growth continues at its current pace remains to be seen, but there is little doubt that padel has established itself as a significant part of the modern racket sports landscape, disrupting a UK market historically dominated by tennis, squash and badminton.

East Glos offers an intriguing example of why that disruption does not have to become a battle between sports.

Established in the 1880s, the club has continually evolved while tennis has remained its constant. Over the decades, croquet, cricket, hockey, archery and football have all featured at various points, while today East Glos is a substantial multi-sport racket club centred around tennis, squash, padel and racketball, with table tennis and pickleball also part of the mix.

At the heart of its squash operation is Squash Manager Mark Toseland, somebody I could easily spend hours talking to about every aspect of the game, from balls, grassroots participation and coaching through to committees, club development and the elite PSA Squash Tour.

Mark was appointed in 2018, when East Glos had around 1,400 members, with tennis understandably accounting for the majority given the club's impressive 17 all-weather floodlit tennis courts and nine grass courts.

The squash section was doing perfectly well, but, as every progressive club operator knows, standing still is rarely a long-term strategy.

So how could it get better?

Padel enters the conversation

By 2019, padel was firmly on the club's radar after several squash and tennis members had played the sport overseas and returned enthusiastic about its potential. In early 2020, East Glos conducted a development survey among its members before holding an Extraordinary General Meeting to propose a series of improvements.

Those proposals included introducing padel alongside a reconfiguration of the squash area, creating an upstairs warm-up space and improving spectator viewing.

Then COVID arrived.

The UK's first lockdown was announced in March 2020 and restrictions continued, on and off, until May 2021. It was an extraordinary period for the sports and leisure industry, with clubs suddenly facing a situation in which people exercising, breathing heavily and socialising together — the very foundations of community sport — were effectively off limits.

What stands out about East Glos during this period is the relationship it had built with its membership. The club communicated regularly before and throughout lockdown, and that appears to have generated considerable loyalty and goodwill.

Many members continued paying their subscriptions despite being unable to use the facilities, recognising that doing so was helping support a club that had become an important part of their lives.

That goodwill mattered. It helped East Glos not only navigate an extremely difficult financial period, but also retain the confidence to think beyond it.

Planning for the future was hardly straightforward when nobody knew exactly what that future would look like and sports clubs across the country were cutting costs, downsizing or, in some cases, closing altogether.

Yet East Glos had the backing of its members and the opportunity to press ahead with its development plans. With partial funding provided through an LTA loan, those plans included three pioneering padel courts created by converting a grass tennis court.

When restrictions lifted, the padel courts opened in April 2021 as the first in the region.

At that stage, simply getting people to understand how padel worked was part of the challenge. The sport did not have anything like the social media exposure and general awareness it enjoys today, meaning the club had to actively introduce members to it.

The response was immediate.

Padel drove additional footfall, brought a new section of the local community through the gates and, crucially from a club business perspective, helped generate new members.

Three padel courts have subsequently become seven, following the addition of another four courts last summer.

From a squash perspective, this is where the East Glos story becomes particularly interesting. Some squash members would understandably have preferred another squash court or two, but collectively they recognised the wider commercial and membership opportunity created by expanding padel.

That required a degree of patience and compromise from the squash committee, accepting that what appeared to be best for another sport in the short term could ultimately strengthen the entire club — including squash — over the longer term.

Growth that has benefited squash too

Fast-forward to the summer of 2026 and East Glos has grown to around 2,500 members, compared with approximately 1,400 when Mark arrived in 2018.

Importantly, that growth has not come at the expense of squash.

Without adding to its four squash courts, court utilisation has increased to a consistent 55% to 60% during the season, while padel court utilisation is running at approximately 85%.

Perhaps the most revealing statistic is participation. During the past 12 months, around 400 different people have booked a squash court. Compare that with five years ago, when the club had around 130 squash-specific members with access to those courts, and the potential benefits of the multi-sport model become much clearer.

So, from a squash perspective, how has East Glos achieved it?

A number of relatively simple decisions appear to have made a significant difference:

• One club rather than separate sporting silos. Individual racket sport memberships were replaced by an overall membership giving members access to all of the club's facilities. Removing those barriers makes it significantly easier for somebody joining for one sport to discover another.

• Make squash visible. A subtle change to the clubhouse layout increased members' exposure to the squash courts. Even the water fountain is positioned alongside them, meaning new members who might otherwise never realise squash is available are regularly brought into the space.

• Use coaches as cross-sport ambassadors. Padel and racketball coach Charlotte Elgood actively encourages participation across sports. If rain stops an outdoor session, for example, players can be brought inside and introduced to the squash courts.

• Give children variety before demanding specialisation. Young players are encouraged to enjoy coaching activities across multiple sports. At the beginning, enjoyment matters more than perfect technique. Creating positive experiences is what encourages children to return week after week.

• Allow curiosity to do some of the work. Simply giving members and juniors opportunities to see and experience everything available within the club increases the chances that they will eventually try something new.

Individually, none of these initiatives appears revolutionary. Collectively, however, they have helped create a club environment in which different racket sports can feed participation into one another rather than competing for ownership of the same members.

From competition to collaboration

East Glos is undoubtedly thriving, but perhaps the most interesting aspect of its development is not simply the membership numbers or court utilisation figures. It is the culture that appears to have developed around them.

The club has become a busy local hub built around sport and social connection, and Mark describes East Glos today as considerably more family-friendly than it was previously. There is a genuine multi-sport feel, allowing people to develop skills across different racket disciplines while remaining part of the same community.

Those who subsequently decide they want to specialise still have plenty of squash-specific opportunities available to help them progress.

As Mark puts it: “It is no longer ‘us vs them’ with relation to the other sports on offer at East Glos.”

That may ultimately be the most important lesson from the East Glos story.

For too long, squash has sometimes viewed tennis — and more recently padel — primarily as competition. Clubs can easily fall into the same trap, with individual sections fighting over courts, investment, membership and resources.

East Glos suggests there is another way.

Padel has brought new people into the club, broadened its appeal and helped underpin significant membership growth. Rather than squash being squeezed out in the process, considerably more people are now using its squash courts.

For operators across the racket sports industry, that should provide plenty of food for thought. The biggest opportunity created by the growth of a new racket sport may not simply be the revenue generated on its own courts. It may be its ability to bring new people into an environment where they can discover everything else a club has to offer.

And for squash in particular, East Glos demonstrates that padel does not necessarily have to be the enemy. Managed intelligently, its growth could actually become part of squash's opportunity.

If you're ever in the Cheltenham area, call in and take a look. East Glos is a fascinating example of what can happen when a club thinks beyond individual sports and starts thinking about the strength of the entire racket sports ecosystem.