FAQ’s

Our courts are only available for use by Abbeydale Park Badminton Club members and cannot be booked. However once the membership fee has been paid there is no additional cost for court usage – members can turn up and play (when the courts are not in use – as shown on the Court Availability page) without additional cost and without the need to book. If there are no free courts, members are obliged to share usage (i.e. one game on, one game off – generally speaking, use common sense and be prepared to compromise)

Simply visit our membership page and review the information. We use GoCardless to process online payments, and manage repeat subscriptions, so when you are ready, click on the appropriate button to fill in your details and register.

After joining you will be issued a coloured tag bearing your name to hang on the playing board for club nights. The tag will take a couple of weeks to arrive after joining.

Visitors are welcome to come down any Friday evening from 7:30, most members arrive by 8:00. This is a relaxed night for social players with a wide range of playing standards. Committee members should be able to advise you on what club nights are suitable based on your standard of play. A committee member is generally present on all nights.
You can visit up to 3 times before we ask you to decide whether or not you would like to become a member. Each visit is subject to a visitors fee of £5 (with additional surcharge on feathers nights), and we will ask you to fill in a paper form with your details, and issue you a temporary paper tag.

Members of the correct playing standard attend the appropriate feathers or plastics club nights. Members generally turn up between 7:30 and 8:15 and play until around 10.00pm. When players arrive they add their Membership Tag to the board in the centre of the hall (see the question below regarding the Tag System). Members and visitors will play doubles games, with one player picking others according to the tag system to play. Once picked, 1 game to 21 is played.

Members are all provided with a plastic coloured tag with their name on in it. All visitors have a paper tag with their name on it.

When attending a club night the tags are placed on the board at the centre of the hall. They are hung up and when a new tag is added it is placed to the back of the line of tags (to the right). The member with their tag on the far left of the board will pick themselves and 3 other member tags to play a game. They can pick any tag (from the first 8, or to the left of the red line). Once picked, the tags are moved to the appropriate court section at the top of the board, with the remaining waiting tags moved to the left, and the next game picked using the same system.

Generally, the person who picked the game chooses the teams, and on a plastics night, provides the shuttle (we use white, Yonex Mavis 300 shuttles). When a game ends, the picker takes the 4 tags from the court area on the board, and adds them to the back of the line of waiting tags, with the winning pair going first.

This system allows members to play different opponents throughout the evening, and also makes sure that no one is sat off for long without getting picked.

Members can only attend club nights of the appropriate standard. Please ask a committee member to advise on certain nights. If a member is of the correct standard and has paid membership fees for senior, student, student county, country, honorary, junior, or is part of the junior coaching program then they are able to play on the club nights.

Playing in the teams and tournaments is optional. All senior, students and juniors members have the opportunity at the end of the season to put their name forward to play in the club teams for next year, which play in the local & Yorkshire leagues. There are lots of teams which cater for different playing standards. You may also put your name forward to the club captains for the current year, and may be called up to play as a reserve. The teams are decided by the captains, and the committee.

Membership does not include any formal coaching. The adult members generally improve their playing ability by attending club nights with other members of a similar standard, and by playing with a variety of different people, while many junior members are enrolled in the specific junior coaching sessions (please contact for more information on junior coaching).

However, coaching can currently be arranged, for members, on an individual basis with the professional coaches of the Junior Club. As of 2021/22, the price is £25/hour for 1-on-1, or group coaching. This is currently only available for paid members of the club, please contact us if you are interested.

Our season runs from the 1st August to 31st July.

Members must bring their own equipment, the club is not generally able to lend shuttles, rackets, or any other equipment.

Members provide their own plastic shuttles, if you require shuttles these can be purchased from a committee member at the hall. On Club nights which use feathers the club provides the feathers and a small fee is played by each player on the night to cover the cost.

In order to keep the badminton floor in top condition, it is essential that you bring a change of shoes from those you arrive in, these must be suitable unmarking court shoes.

As a Day member, you would be welcome to play before 4:30 on any day except when the courts are already booked, which will be displayed on the court availability page. If you are an appropriate standard then you can join in with our other day members who play on Mondays and Wednesdays from 10am.

We are currently working on aligning our club to the Badminton England safeguarding policies and recommendations.

For the moment, please use the contact form and we will deal with your concern as quickly as we can. Please be aware that this goes to our email account and may be visible to any member of the committee, although in practice it is most likely to be seen by the website admin, president, and/or safeguarding officer (when one is in place).

If you do not want your concern to be visible to any or certain members of the committee, you are encouraged to approach a committee member in confidence as appropriate, or you can report your concern directly to the Badminton England Safeguarding Team:

Tel: 01908 268400
Email: safeguarding@badmintonengland.co.uk
Online Incident Report Form: here