HPFA / Sports Center Owned Badminton Equipment

We have an ongoing issue with the quality of the existing badminton equipment that is used buy both the Monday and Wednesday clubs as well as potential hirer’s of the hall for badminton.

I am led to believe that a new net is being sourced for the Monday club as well as direct hirers of the hall as i was contacted to source for you to purchase.  This would be beneficial for both these parties (Wednesday club own there own nets thanks to a generous offer to purchase for us from Abrahams).

This leads on to the posts themselves, i did mention in the letter from both clubs for the AGM that the posts themselves are failing and should be replaced, from discussions with some of the older members of the club its believed that the posts were bought back into the hall from storage when the new hall was constructed, possibly dating these posts at some half a century old and they are really beginning to show their age.

We have over the years performed running repairs on the posts including welding and tightening (at our own time and expense), but nothing really seems to work well enough.

The following video shows one of the current (6) blue posts and the ‘play’ in the the post itself, which should be fixed vertically upright, they are all the same. 

As they are so loose, when a net is attached and the positioning of the posts is on the outer white mark of the court, both posts bend inwards and cannot take the strain of a net.

To tighten the nets we have to extend the posts beyond the boundary of the court, however as tight as we can get the net, the middle droop is still 6cms from a correctly tightened net.

Solutions

1) Attempt to repair again the existing posts, this constantly fails due to the age of the posts.

2) Buy new lightweight posts – new lightweight posts (similar to the current ones) will cost between £150 and £500 for the pair and you will need 3 pairs.

3) The orange posts you have seen in the above pictures.

Yonex Orange Posts

These posts you have seen above in the pictures are actually ex commonwealth games 2022 posts made by Yonex, so they are classed as elite and probably overkill for most players, the model as close as i can find is the Yonex AC357, which for a pair of posts retails at £4500.

However i managed to find an utter bargain on eBay (link) of 3 sets of these for a grand total of £150, although shipping of these was £200, getting all 3 sets for £350 was not to be passed up. I hadn’t set out to find and buy posts but these came up at a fortuitous time and i bit the bullet before finding out if they would be welcomed of not.

I am willing to sell them to the HPFA for the cost i paid for them and a set is there currently should you wish to see the quality of them yourselves.

Pros and Cons.

There are too many Pros to count and we used the set stored at the HPFA last night and the difference was like night and day compared to the old ones, however there are some cons,

1) The first is the weight of them, the post unit itself is circa 60kgs, and there is an additional 40kgs of weight stored where the old posts are which isn’t needed unless for league games or tournaments, the posts do move on wheels and getting them onto the wheels isn’t a problem, but perhaps some smaller build people may have trouble maneuvering them. They came from a school who had never used them as they were too heavy for the boys to move.

2) Net setup is not as easy, need to create loops to hook on and then tension with the handle each side, again just practice.

3) The way they are orientated, the posts face out of the court (as they should do) but the gaps between courts isn’t enough for them side by side.

In the current operation of running 3 courts, the blue posts do fit currently as they are orientated inwards (bad) so you can have an orange set on court 1 and 3 and an old set in the middle at worst case (but still should be replaced), but should the HPFA decide to purchase all 3 sets then we would look at modifying a set for the middle court to allow them to fit – basically cutting and re-welding the thin neck part and we can get this completed at AC Bacons (already confirmed they will do this for us).

Overall

We do need new posts and we will not get better ever and defiantly not at the cost these were procured at.  You could also probably look to sell the old posts on to recoup perhaps £100.

I am in no rush to sell unless the HPFA decide to go another route and hopefully can leave the set that is already there (behind the curtain) for people to use, I do not mind HPFA using them for other hirers either.

If you have any questions or queries then we are happy to discuss.