We should stress that this is not a wholly gloomy scene. When I spoke to George Wood, sport director for Badminton England, I found myself enthused by his positivity. Weekly player numbers recently hit 443,000 – the highest since they were first recorded in 2017 – while online equipment hub BadmintonHQ are reporting a 24 per cent rise in orders over the past 12 months. Meanwhile, this week saw the return of the National Badminton League (NBL) for the first time since those funding cuts landed after the Rio Games.
On Monday, the opening round of NBL fixtures were live-streamed on YouTube. Ethan Rose helped Loughborough University to a 4-1 win over Bristol Bullets, while Charlie Castle (nephew of former British tennis No 1 Andrew) delivered a dominant performance as Saxons thumped the University of Nottingham 5-0.
Both matches made for an enjoyable watch. Smashes pinged around at speeds approaching 300mph – it’s a little-known fact that badminton is the fastest of all racket sports – so that singles players need both silky movement and clever anticipation to cover the court. In doubles, caffeinated reactions were at a premium, given the relentlessness of the attacks. As in tennis, the two aspects of the sport have largely diverged, with few athletes attempting to combine singles and doubles careers.
It should also be said, however, that the NBL’s attendances were modest: a couple of hundred at best? The surroundings also gave off a village-hall vibe which didn’t speak of a vibrant modern sport. Unlike its previous, pre-2016 incarnation, the event is certainly not being televised by Sky Sports.
Badminton has a long history and tradition in this country. Our leading sports historian Richard Holt writes that it was “originally named after the Gloucestershire estate of the Duke of Beaufort where it was supposedly first played in 1870”, while the inaugural national championships were staged in 1899. Holt does, however, suggest that it has always had a problem with self-promotion, describing it as “the shrinking violet of suburban sport”.
Today, many believe that we stand at a crossroads. “I feel like Badminton England have a very challenging job,” says Langridge, who has developed the app Badminton Skills to help ambitious players improve their technique. “In simple terms, we’re getting worse. On the world scene, we used to be a major power, but when you lose all your funding overnight that’s always going to send a shockwave through the sport. A lot of senior players had to retire, a lot of juniors didn’t get the experiences they needed to progress, and we effectively went back 10 years right there.
“The next two or three years are crucial. We’ve got some decent prospects in the 17 to 19 age-group, and I’m really happy to see that Toby Penty” – who made it to the round of 16 at the Tokyo Olympics – “is now coaching at the National Centre because I think he’s a really good influence. Denmark and, increasingly, France have shown that it’s possible to compete with the Asian giants. But we also need to be wary of the example of Sweden. The Swedes were a powerhouse 50 years ago and now they’re nowhere to be seen. We really don’t want to go down that road.”
