Kilcullen Panthers pounce on pickleball
Enthusiastic turnout for first Panthers session: Rhonda Rowley, Brian Murphy, Lucia Brennan, Enda O'Neill, Mary Butler, Esther Reddy, David McConaghy, Alva Mangan, Jennifer Geoghegan, Gail Brazil, Olwen Dowzard, Elaine Sammon, Paula Kavanagh and Anna Jennings.
IF you know, you know about pickleball, and if you don't know you soon will, because this is a game building followers right across the country.
"It's everywhere, and growing exponentially," says Lucia Brennan, who recently inaugurated the Kilcullen Panthers pickleball club with friend Paula Kavanagh. they are playing weekly sessions on Tuesdays from 6pm-8pm, in Kilcullen Parish Centre.
"Dublin, Donegal, Kerry, Westmeath is big, it's just mushrooming all over the place."
A keen tennis fan, Lucia says the idea for the club was born during a chat after a game at the town's Tennis Club.
"I found that there was already a club in Ryston in Newbridge, so I tried it out there, and then decided we could probably get our own group together."
Pickleball is a cross between tennis, badminton and table tennis, and the game was invented in 1965 in Seattle in the USA. It began to develop on this side of the Atlantic in 2011, and Pickleball Ireland has been established to oversee the sport's development and competition here.
The game is played by both women and men, and is suitable for all ages, Lucia says.
"There's not a lot of running around like tennis, and the games are short, so it's very gentle on the joints. But you do know you have been exercising when you finish. It's good cardiac conditioning."
They were lucky to get a weekly slot in Kilcullen Community Centre, which is a very busy place, and fortunately has badminton courts already marked out. Pickleball is played on badminton-sized courts, but with bats and a tennis-height net. Instead of a shuttlecock, there's a plastic ball.
As Lucia and Paula made it a 'soft launch', most of those who turned up for the inaugural Open Night were from their own female friends network. But there were three men, including the community centre's manager Enda O'Neill, and there's plenty of room for more.
"Anyone interested can just drop along to our Tuesday evening sessions, and I guarantee I can have them playing in 15 minutes," Lucia promises.
