There are a lot of ways to build a pickleball club.
You can roll out temporary courts in a sports hall. You can add a session to an existing leisure programme. You can do the minimum and see what happens.
Josh Yeng, Harvey Ravenscroft and Ben Tolley took none of those routes.
We visited Courtside recently and spent the afternoon on court, in conversation, and thoroughly convinced that some of the best things in pickleball are being built by people who simply refuse to think small.
The origin story
Courtside is the work of three people: Josh Yeng, Harvey Ravenscroft and Ben Tolley.
Josh, 35, came from a property background with a lifelong love of tennis. Harvey, 22, was a tennis and padel coach who discovered pickleball and never really looked back. Ben, 21, had no racquet sports background whatsoever, just an eye for detail, a methodical mind, and the kind of operational instinct that most people take decades to develop. He’s currently completing a degree apprenticeship alongside helping to build all of this.
Josh originally reached out to Harvey’s father, also a tennis coach, about what might be possible in the pickleball space in the Midlands. Harvey’s response was immediate: “This sounds great, let’s bring Ben in too.”
That turned out to be a very smart decision.
A university lecturer once told Harvey that the business plan wouldn’t work.
Too much startup cost. Too long to break even. A market that wasn’t proven.
Harvey had submitted the actual business as his assignment, the one he, Josh and Ben were already building.
The original plan had been to build both padel and pickleball. They found their venue, Block F on Stourbridge Industrial Estate, and quickly realised the ceiling height was about a metre too short for padel.
Rather than compromise, they made a call: go all in on pickleball. Build it properly.
Whilst Ben and Harvey were balancing their degrees, Josh was putting in incredibly long hours to physically bring the business to life. The build phase was far from simple. They screeded the entire floor to make it perfectly flat before installing the courts, a much more expensive route than temporary setups, but one they believed was essential if they were going to do it properly.
"We spent so much time on the courts,” Harvey says. “It cost a huge amount more than rolling out temporary courts, but it’s our USP. Quality courts are what we’re here for.”
What Courtside actually looks like
Eight courts. All permanent, all purpose-built, all on a screed floor with a quality acrylic surface. Proper spacing, proper nets, proper lighting.
The industrial unit setting sounds utilitarian on paper. In person, it doesn’t feel that way.
There’s a real social energy to the place, a viewing area, a bar, and the kind of ambient noise that comes from eight courts full of people genuinely enjoying themselves.
You walk in and immediately understand why community groups have moved their sessions here from the leisure centre up the road.
The kit is serious too.
The community that’s built up around it
Ask the team what they’re most proud of and the answer isn’t the courts or the technology.
It’s the people.
Take Ollie.
He started playing pickleball two months ago, having not been doing much physical activity at the time. He wasn’t sure he’d enjoy it. He just needed something to do.
Two months later, he’s dropped two and a half stone, is playing at a 3.0 level, posting videos, and training with Harvey ahead of upcoming events.
That story isn’t the exception at Courtside.
It’s the pattern.
The clubs and community groups that have made Courtside their home, from the Salty Picklers to regular U3A sessions, Power Pickleball, weekly socials and coached beginner programmes, have found something here beyond just a place to play.
There’s a doubles league running across seven divisions, with promotion, relegation and a WhatsApp group for every tier. A junior championship. Regular tournaments hosted for outside organisers most weekends.
There’s always something happening at Courtside, from nine in the morning until the doors shut at 9pm.
The vision
Courtside is currently in its first year, and Josh, Harvey and Ben are being deliberate about what comes next.
"We can't wait to provide the rest of the UK with more venues like Courtside, with the same quality and the same community."
The ambition is a network of Courtside venues across the UK.
The team is targeting a position to expand by early 2026.
Harvey’s thinking has always been that clubs which survive long-term in racquet sports aren’t the ones that simply put courts down and collect pay-and-play fees.
They’re the ones that build genuine communities.
The ones that think carefully about layout, experience, atmosphere, and what keeps people coming back week after week.
“If you just plunk courts down and it’s pay-and-play,” he says, “people come in, they don’t see a face, there’s no user experience. You can do that for a couple of years, you’d probably do all right. And then it’ll be like what happened in Sweden with padel.”
Courtside is betting on the other model.
Eight courts. A real community. A thoughtful experience built by three people who had a clear idea of what they wanted to create, and went ahead and built it.
Visit Courtside Pickleball
Location: Block F, Bay 5 & 6, Stourbridge Industrial Estate, Stourbridge, DY8 1JN
Courts: 8 purpose-built indoor pickleball courts
Sessions: Social play, coaching, leagues, tournaments and events across the week
Booking: courtsidepickleball.co.uk
Contact: harvey@courtsidepickleball.co.uk
Social: @courtsidepickleball
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