On a busy A-road in Aigburth, around 54,000 vehicles pass the gates of Liverpool Cricket and Sports Club every single day. Most people behind those windscreens probably don’t know what’s on the other side of the fence – and if they’ve driven past recently, they’ve been missing out on some of the most interesting padel in the north of England.
The club was founded in 1807. It moved to its current site in 1881. It is Lancashire County Cricket Club’s preferred venue in the city, hosts the Liverpool International Tennis Tournament (the largest and longest-running tennis exhibition in Europe), and has run international squash tournaments drawing the top 100 European players. This is not a newcomer to sport. And yet, when padel arrived, the club embraced it as eagerly as anything it has taken on in its 200-year history.
Mike Harrison, Chair of the Tennis and Padel Sections, answered our questions.
A 200-year-old club adds padel
Liverpool Cricket Club didn’t come to padel on a whim. The club has always been a multi-sport institution – cricket and tennis have been joined over the years by squash, rugby, bowls, and lacrosse. When the committee saw how padel was spreading across Europe and taking hold in the UK, the question wasn’t whether it fitted the club’s character. It was whether Liverpool was ready for it.
“We felt like it would be a good fit for us here in Liverpool,” Mike says, “and we’ve been proved right. It’s absolutely thriving at the club.”
Three courts now sit on the site, all of them outdoors. The courts were built by Game4Padel, one of the UK’s leading padel providers, who partner with Liverpool Cricket Club to build and run the padel community here. The planning application for covered courts was rejected by the council – which turned out to be less of a setback than the club feared.
All weathers, all year round
Here’s the thing about outdoor padel courts in the north of England: you’d expect them to sit empty from October to March. That hasn’t happened at Liverpool Cricket Club.
“We were worried that having uncovered courts would hamper us,” Mike admits. “But we see people turning up all year round, in all weathers, and the courts are pretty busy most of the time.”
It’s a finding that will resonate with anyone who has played padel through a British winter and discovered that the enclosed court format keeps you surprisingly warm – and that rain doesn’t deter padel players the way it deters, say, fair-weather tennis players. The walls are useful for more than bouncing the ball off.
If you’ve been considering whether an outdoor club membership is worth it in a northern city, the answer coming back from Aigburth is: yes. And outdoor padel works in the UK in ways that open tennis courts simply don’t.
Who plays here
Walk onto the courts at Liverpool Cricket Club and you’ll find about as broad a cross-section of padel players as you’re likely to encounter anywhere in the UK. Juniors. Members in their seventies and eighties. People who came from tennis or cricket or squash. And plenty of people who have never played any of those sports – padel was their entry point.
“We have quite a mix of people that play,” Mike says. “The wider Liverpool community is a wonderful mix of cultures and we strive to ensure that we are able to offer as many opportunities to take up sport in a safe and welcoming environment as possible.”
The club also has a sizeable contingent of social members – people who use the facilities, come to events, and treat the club as a community hub as much as a sporting venue. The calendar runs to charity fundraisers for Macmillan Cancer Research, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Marie Curie, and the Whitechapel Centre; darts marathons; marquee Race Day screenings. Padel fits into a social fabric that’s been weaving itself together for two centuries.
For anyone picking a padel club in Liverpool, this context matters. Our guide to padel in Liverpool covers the city’s options – but the social dimension at Liverpool Cricket Club is something the standalone padel venues simply can’t replicate.
The difference between this and a padel-only venue
When padel-specific venues opened in the UK, they offered something clubs like Liverpool Cricket couldn’t: multiple courts, modern facilities, a focused environment, coaching programmes. They’re excellent places to play padel.
But Liverpool Cricket Club offers something else. As Mike puts it: “We are a 200-year-old sports club, so anyone playing padel here is immediately part of that, and that’s a huge benefit.”
That’s not marketing copy. It means that the person booking the court next to you might be someone who’s been playing cricket here for thirty years. It means post-match drinks in a clubhouse that’s hosted generations of Liverpool sportspeople. It means the padel community sits alongside – and increasingly mingles with – the tennis players, the squash players, the cricketers.
“The cross-sport socialising is also a differentiator to playing at a standalone padel venue,” Mike says, “and we find that works really well here.”
What’s coming next
Liverpool Cricket Club was the first venue in the city to install padel courts. It won’t be the city’s biggest padel operation for long.
Two new covered courts are planned before the end of 2026. That would take the total to five – a meaningful expansion, and one that would put the club among the larger padel venues in the north of England. The covered courts would also remove the one remaining limitation of the current setup.
“We see ourselves as just being at the beginning of our padel adventure,” Mike says. “Padel is now part of our club DNA.”
Membership costs £140 per year for padel access. The club is at 376 Aigburth Road, Liverpool L17. Fifty-four thousand vehicles go past those gates every day. If you’ve been in one of them, wondering what’s behind the fence – now you know.