Andover club opens new padel courts for 90th anniversary

Kit Malthouse officially opened Andover Lawn Tennis Club’s new padel courts on Saturday 4 July as the club marked its 90th anniversary with a family fun day in Upper Clatford. The opening was set for 2:30pm in a line-up that also included junior and padel exhibition matches, a serving-speed competition, face painting, garden games, gourmet burgers, a new bar and Wimbledon live screenings.

The headline is not the MP’s appearance but the club’s expansion. Andover Lawn Tennis Club now says it has five tennis courts in total, split between two indoor all-weather courts and three floodlit outdoor courts, plus two outdoor padel courts now open. For a club in a smaller market like Test Valley, that is the more telling number set: the new padel offer sits beside an established tennis base rather than replacing it.

The club’s own history runs back to 1936, when the Folly Tennis Club renamed itself Andover Lawn Tennis Club and played at Andover Cricket Club in Batchelors Barn Road. It moved to Drove Courts in 1945, and the latest additions show how an older club can keep pace with changing racket-sport demand without losing its identity.

Planning papers for the project described three outdoor padel courts on a currently vacant parcel of land at Era Park, Balksbury Hill, Andover. A club post in January 2025 said the padel proposal had been approved and that members would remain at the heart of decisions. Earlier planning notes said the scheme was designed to answer growing national and local demand for padel, which the club described as the fastest-growing racket sport in the UK and one strongly supported by the Lawn Tennis Association.

The booking model matters as much as the build-out. Andover says it is prioritising existing tennis members for court access first, while still welcoming new members and pay-as-you-go padel players. That is the kind of detail that decides whether a new facility becomes a lasting part of a club’s weekly traffic or just a one-day anniversary flourish.