In the past 3 years our club scaled down from bold 4 teams, to atm 2 teams. For the upcoming season we get a problem to enroll 2 teams. One team is lacking in terms of a regular player for WS and WD. Normally we invested much work into the junior players. I also trained a bunch of them, without seeing any cent and I did it with a smile. The problem with the juniors is often the same. The first love, first party and then they get lost. We had a high chance to loose these players, because of the growing-up process, or getting too good to play at a different club to have a challenge. So we couldn‘t count on the juniors. Atm we have a bunch of regular players, who get older. Some got serious injured and couldn‘t play, some have family issues, so they aren‘t able to play regular. I designed at the beginning of the year a club poll to investigate how many players are interested to play league, at which level, which disciplines and how often per season. I also asked if the want to play regular or as a stand-by player. We have the problem that we have enough people who wanna play but around 60% as a stand-by. So our club is not lacking members, but players who want to play 12-14 games per season. Everybody wants to be flexible and if they want, they will play, if not they don‘t play. I want to get new members to our club, but don‘t have a clue. We have often some beginner players who come a few times, discover that their level of play is far away from the average players and don‘t become members. They sign the hobby clubs. I often tried to integrate them and arranged games, did some small talk, showed techniques and gave hints etc. but was always unable to win them as a member. My impression is that our club is dying and I want to keep it alive. Investing time and money for the juniors didn‘t paid off in the last 10 years. A few stay, most move away until they passed the 19-20 to built up their lives or decided to play for a different club, because they are hungry to play higher. I don‘t want to blame them. I understand it. On the other side the 100% players who have a constant life and be loyal to the club, get older and more often injured, which is a big issue. We have atm 6 players who are serious injured with a long time recovery. Maybe somebody went through similar hard times and know this problem. What‘s your idea? What do you thing could be a possible solution over a few years? How would you solve it? Any input is welcome. I also thought about playing at a different club to avoid investing any time into it, but didn‘t get warm with any possible competetive club and don‘t want to travel 3-4 times per week. Feel free to reply and I'm happy about any serious post which give me some input. THANKS!
This has been happening for many years, at once stage, probably 20 years ago there were at least 8 clubs in our small english town, now their are 2 and only one of those plays league. Over the years we managed to merge with other clubs of a similar standard in the town and managed to keep going. We had a very successful Junior club, frequently getting players into the county squads, but after girlfriends and uni ...we saw very few of the remain, luckily we have managed to retain 3 recently and have been county champs a few times. sorry I havent got any magic formular, just keep mtrying
You could ask differently: What about the juniors who do stay on? Typically, they play Badminton for the same reasons as the adults: They like hanging out with their friends. They like the challenge of becoming better. They like sports and physical activity. They like playing and competing. Everyone has a different focus on that, and as kids age, it tends to shift. For instance, in U11, kids tend to have boundless energy and love movement. In U13 and U15, they start to explore training and challenge themselves. In U15 and U17, friends become a lot more important. Kids also tend to need more structure; whereas adult players can organize a whole training session for themselves, you basically always need a coach, even in U19. So make sure sure your kids have all of the above reasons to stay in your club. 1. Organize fun events with the kids, such as barbecue evening, summer trip to a youth hostel, go to a high-level league game or tournament, Christmas celebration, and many more. This will lead to them becoming friends. Signs that you nailed down social aspects include that kids start inviting each other to birthday parties and come to the training even when injured/sick just to sit on the side. 2.&3. Offer serious training for everybody, appropriate for their age. There can be training groups for newer players, but everybody should be challenged. This means that the training must be split on skill and age lines. Join training camps by external coaches (for instance AH Badmintoncamps in Germany), or even organize them in your hall. Make sure to offer training during the holidays - rent a hall, ask another club whether you can visit, or do fitness training outside. 4. Make sure that older kids (starting at U13) get to compete, not only against the others in your club, but also at a district or state level. You can organize youth tournaments themselves, but participating in the numerous official and private tournaments in your area works as well. Integrate the older kids into the senior circuit to make sure they're always challenged - if they're really good, in NRW there's even the option to let them play in senior teams. Note that while I wrote kids above, virtually all of it applies to adults as well. Even the best clubs have a high attrition rate; 1 in 5 kids still playing in the club at age 21 can be considered a good stat. Note that some people also return to their home town or nearby after their studies. What can you do to beat the attrition rate? Well, all of the above, but also: recruit plenty of kids. If you want 10 kids by age 19, you'll need 20-30 at age 13. One way to do that is going into primary schools and advertising / player selection there. You can also cooperate with schools and universities in your region - one of the clubs I frequent is now 60% the players who were in university sports but wanted more hall time and training. General advertising helps too - if there's a huge flag or poster before the school on Friday before every tournament you organize, a lot of kids may want to know what the deal is about. Remove barriers for parents and newcomers; loan rackets and offer low-level groups. Involve parents in the training - they can feed the kids 20 minutes before the end of the training. Many a parent has discovered the sport by seeing their kids play. Parent - child doubles tournaments of various kinds are very popular. In addition, you can cooperate with clubs in your region; if your hall is open during the summer holidays, invite everybody from the surrounding clubs to play and train for free or a small charge. If you don't have enough players for a whole team, consider fielding one team among two clubs (German: Spielgemeinschaft). Unfortunately, there is a huge network effect; if there are 5+ kids of the same age already in your club, it's much easier for them to become friends, they will always have training partners, and get to compete against others. Same goes for adults: Once you have one court with 4 beginners every week, new beginners will join your club much more willingly. All of these actions require time, knowledge, and money. The federation can often help you; interested players can join coaching courses. In NRW in particular (link to list), the junior coaching courses are always a blast and a sure way to get players who were just there for fun more interested into the sport.
At first, I didn't have any idea what to do, but then I thought some more.... I live in a city with quite a few badminton clubs, but I train and play in a different city and I'm happy to travel for Badminton, because I think it's worth it. I chose that club, because there's a really good (external) coach, but I'm also happy to travel for just playing on the days the coach is not there, because I like the people. That explains why I like this club, but there must be more, because people who left the club years ago to play in better divisions/leagues, return to this club I'm not the only one coming from a different city to this club everybody knows everyone; parents, children, 'hobby' players, league players,.... kids from other clubs in the city quit their clubs to come to us recently we changed the concept for U9 - U19 training entirely and this is starting to attract kids from other cities (their parents don't even give them a ride) even the hobby players help out when help for a tournament (organization/food/preparing/cleaning) is needed the external coach quit his other coaching job at a different club to have the time to train our kids twice instead of once a week ... So there must be more to it. Officially, there are only two occasions when everybody will meet. One summer party (BBQ) and one Christmas party. Once a year, we also participate at a tournament that lasts for three days. All players. Kids, old players, everyone in between. I mean, nobody is forced to participate, but the children all want to and there's always enough adults, because for us, it's a big party and we meet the same players from all over Germany every year... This tournament helps a lot to build a stronger community between the children and it helps them to feel that they are part of the club, because they know the adult players. For the hobby players, there are some sessions almost the same time when the kids have to train (but in a different hall), so parents can drop off the little ones, play themselves, and pick them up again. Every once in a while, we'll recruit one of the better hobby players for a team. For adults, we have one day with training exclusively (seriously, not a single game is played). We pay a good coach for it and it helps to get the attention from players from other clubs. During the 'just play badminton' sessions, everybody will pair with everybody else. It's not a rule, it just happens. After badminton, when taking a shower, we often have a beer (Duschbier). In my previous club, we even had a Duschbierkalender (shower beer calendar) to make sure it was clear who had to bring the beer for everybody. The community is strong, we still lack one or two female players for our first team. Also, in NRW it's possible to influence the plan to raise the chance of home games for all teams at the same time. We try to do that. This way, there's a lot more communication between different teams already. And communication will lead to a stronger community. Also, a trend is showing that wifes, husbands abs children will come to the home games to spend time with the family and to enjoy the day. That way even the young parents will stay in the hall longer.... Talking, having a beer,... Still, we focus on the kids. They get to train four times a week. Two times focusing on technique, one time focusing on stamina, speed, overall physical strength and one time focusing on playing, but this doesn't mean they only play on their own. The reason why children from other cubs join us, is the good quality training, for sure, but at least as much, it's the community among the kids. They all feel comfortable. There are children who don't get along at school at all. They get along when practicing. For their league games, we try to make sure there's adviser club member (coach if possible) and not only parents in the hall, so the kids get coaching during the games and have someone to turn to who is not a parent. For tournaments, we make sure there is one. I think this is important, because parents tend to expect too much and pressure their children even if they don't understand the game at all. This also helps the kids immediately when they see that analyzing the opponent helps winning games and they even start to try it themselves. Even if they don't know what to say, they'll walk up to the kid who is playing and will talk to them, showing support. While this is not a suggestion of any kind, I hope it still helps.
Thanks for the replies. To understand our whole enviroment, I decided to write something down. We have 5 training sessions for U9-U19 players per week. We have so many kids and teens, that we thought about a freeze in this department because we have around 60 kids. The sessions are split for the beginners and the better players. 2-2 coaches work together with the groups. We drive to the RL and nearly all U19 tournaments within a 100km radius. One coach offers his van always for the trips and the parents support it. Some juniors qualified for WDM. We also have during holidays a hall. Christmas, Easter, Summer and so on. The best junior players are allowed to train additional with the seniors on top. We have a coaching holiday during summer, including playing till midnight and sleeping in the hall. We organize before starting the holidays a junior playing with one of his/her parent a tournament for fun. IMO we are not lazy in this department and offer so much. Christmas dinner, party at the end of a season... For the location, I don't wanna lie. We have a more serious club nearby. Around 8 km away. They have a cheaper membership, better coaches, we have a better discount for shuttles and a much better sporting hall. It's all in a 200k citizen city. We also line up a big tournament each year, we try also to line up 3-4 RL tournaments and have a bunch of helping hands. I do a doubles specific training during my free time in the senior department which is target for the lower level players. I don't get paid and do it, when I could also play serious matches. I'm open for wishes and take it serious to help players, to become better. We have 3 training sessions for the seniors. It's also possible to come early and play a game vs. the juniors to challenge the young players. Sadly we don't have a training in the senior department. It's organized by myself, because alot seniors just wanna play and don't want a exclusive training time. I tried to get something like that, but the chairman is against it, because he is also this kind of player who don't like training, so I train with my friends/team mates and fellow clubmates and pay a coach once a week out of my own pocket. I think this a big problem where my club fails badly. But I don't get an idea to change it. Other problems are: - transition juniors -> seniors because of locations. Serious who studied/work in a bigger city don't come back, it's the enviroment - beginner seniors don't stay, they sign the hobby clubs. Maybe we are too expensive, but can't drop the price because we are just a badminton department of a 5k multiple sports club - our club is not attractive enough to get seniors from other clubs (we needed to cancel a BL team because of lacking players) - the lacking passion of current members to play a serious season (just helping out) - increase of the average age, which means more injuries for the passioned players Maybe I don't see anything, but the room for more improvements is limited and alot people put much effort for free into the club. I hope this helps to understand the complex structure a bit better.
First of all, thanks for sharing some more information. Obviously, you are doing very well in the juniors department, but have trouble finding (more or less) serious players above the age of 19. Where are the differences? You already shared one.... I wouldn't even look at a club like that. To me, training is more important than just playing games. I don't need a club if I just want to play. My club is in a city where people move away from after graduating from school as well and there are 'better' clubs in the same city and some more not too far away, but people join our club, because of this coach and because of the training that is accessible for everyone (and not just to the top team or to people who pay more). I can just speak for myself, but I would not join a club without having the chance to train with a coach, even if there are some other reasons, I'd start to work on that. Nobody said it would be easy.
This is a very interesting thread as my own club is one that cannot keep growing because other clubs are struggling and my club has absorbed others. Location appears to be a huge factor, as it happens to be positioned with no other competing clubs nearby, with a good number of courts. The actual playerbase is quite mixed. 7 teams of 6-8 players, with maybe 30-40% who don't participate in league games at all, and our top end is not incredibly competitive - we are mid-table in the Div1 leagues we compete in. There are certainly better clubs you can go to if you want to have stronger competition. One of the things that has always been noted when people ask to join (and be added onto a wait list recently) is that the club is extremely welcoming, regardless of your ability and aspirations. We don't get many juniors at all actually, and tend to gain groups of people who have played as a 3-5 booking a hall every week and decide they want more variety. The juniors are very seasonal (show up for summer and disappear during the season, but that is okay). In some ways, our club caters well to those who want to remain flexible; whatever stage of life they are in, the club will be there for them to pop into. It can have problems where if everyone turns up one night, you can have 4 courts with 40 people, but it's sort of a self-levelling thing - if one week too many show up, then fewer come to the next and vice-versa! Perhaps you could look to gain more casual players, and introduce less competitive league teams. Maybe even a retirement league and/or drinking league?
I agree that playing is less important than training, so I pay a coach out of my own pocket with a few together to have serious training. I also do a lot in own initiative. We had years ago a coach who did training, but quit, because we had club night and training side by side, which was IMO wrong. Since somebody was not keen to do a special exercise he/she could switch the sides. Especially the exercise out of the comfortzone made them turn away. After a while we were just a few people, so he quit, because his prepartion was useless with these on/off guys. We have a bunch a good players who have there best time behind them at around 45yo who are more keen to have the social aspect and keep playing than a huge improvement. Also our chairman and committee is very against training at the cost of the people who just wanna play. It is very awkward if you visit our training. You will see me and a few others with a coach in the one corner on 2-3 courts, while the rest plays on 5-6 courts. IMO these players are not bad, they do in RL pretty well and at tournaments, and also in the league games, but they don't see the improvement aspect which is the reason why it is how it is. I tried in the past to find a dialogue, but most people just wanna train serious once in a month, while I do training 2 times per week and have not much energy for games anymore.
A very popular model in the UK is a separate team training night for those seeking exclusive training, and not games. If it's known you can join trainings by being trialled in the normal club sessions, then it tends to bring the more competitive players out anyway. A side effect is that I FREQUENTLY hear complaints that team players in such a scenario rarely attend the club nights (games only) and it feels like they are two separate clubs. Again, I emphasise that the social/leisurely games only club is the part that drives growth. It's only through this part of the club that people become interested in training harder. Normally most people play 6-12 months in club sessions only before they feel confident enough to train. If you create a divide instead of a transition, then you lose the empowering part of feeling part of a team, and building confidence.
I actually can just describe how I handle the lack of our club, which are important to me. Like training. I also know alot players from my hometown and from different cities, who don't like to train or just to a limited amount. I can tolerate and accept their decision, but it's not my way. I also know bigger clubs, whose players train in play in different categories in different halls so no lower level player will bore the others. The best way for my own improvement would be if we get an additional pure training time, which seems atm impossible, because we don't use the hall alone. But this don't solve the main problem of new members. The committee want all the decent players, ignore beginners and see the future in the juniors. IMO the juniors won't stay if we don't have high level senior teams or enough teams with space. So a differnt club can be more attractive for them. So they move on to a different club, because their lives also changes at the Age of 19. So the senior teams are not high enough for the passioned juniors, so they switch, if they stay within the city. I want in general senior members, regardless which level, because I see it as an investment. If it takes my time to support such players to grow, I would do it, but these types of players normally look for the casual hobby enviroment and don't feel comfortable at our club and I also need time for my own improvements, so I can't do it all the time. We also have a huge area and the ways are not short. During season I chat often with our oppoents and they all have the problem to get new members. Frankly the clubs are all seeking for the easy player to a certain standard and not total beginners. I'm not the person who leaves the sinking ship, but if we can't make a change within the 2-3 years anything will break up. My team struggles at the moment as well, but we will try to play a whole season with rotating spare women all the time, otherwise we need to void the team. Some team mates think about a change to a different club and would drive a bigger distance. I also had the thoughts about a change a year ago, but didn't because the other club (nearest possible solution), don't see the individuals and the social aspect,. I was a few times there, but the anti-social enviroment is not my cup of tea. And honestly I would miss some real friends from my current club.
Short update: After 2 month, hours of dialogs with the chairman and others members and so on, I will play this season and will change after it to a different club. This means a much longer distance for me (4 times), but as long as nearly nobody want to change anything I got stuck in an unsatisfying enviroment and I must change it.
I'm sorry to hear that you seem to be alone at your club and thus not have another option. Despite not being at your club, I really appreciate your effort and dedication. I myself don't play at a club where I live due to the lack of (quality) training and while I sometimes question myself why I do this, it's worth it for me. I still like the people here and tried to make it absolutely clear that I just left because I was looking for training. It's sad to see that only very few clubs in Germany offer training for adults. I hope you made the right choice. I know it's not easy. I understand that it takes a lot of dedication and time to run a club, take care of the finances, organize tournaments to earn some money (to spend on coaches, that's what we mostly do at least). In Germany, we also have the problem that there's not a lot of money involved in badminton and it seems even less when you compare it to other sports (for example soccer/football clubs earning two million Euros (2000000 €) per year for a tiny logo on the sleeve/shoulder of the shirts). That's why we need dedicated people like you. At my club, I don't even have an official position, but I train the kids, take care of them at tournaments and help out organizing/running tournaments whenever needed and even that already eats up a lot of time, so I cannot really blame anyone who says he wants to have some weekends off... But this will lead to less tournaments, less money, less training, and so on. What I want to say: Thank you very much @ucantseeme and all the other people out there dedicated to badminton and trying to change things that you dislike about it.
Tbh I'm not alone with my opinion at my club, a few want a change, but there is no empathy for the problem, I don't know what to do. You have often these people who blame, but they don't talk directly with the chairman. They want a change, but don't want to invest anything. They don't want the change not as bad as I want and if it means I need to struggle to go to a proper training, I will. What makes me really sad is that I spend hundreds of Euros for the Cafeteria and making decent food (cooking is beside badminton my passion, my food was gone the first). I stand every tournament, every Rangliste, every Jugendrangliste from Sat-Sun there, was the first at the hall, built up the courts, making breakfast, cooking coffee, washed the dish, sold the food just mostly together with me mixed partner. I was a person who said: "the clubs need me." I woke up Sat-Sun at around 5:00am making salad, had 1-2 cake in the oven, drove to the hall and arrived at 7:30 and left at 7pm for the whole weekend. If a clubmate had a broken string, I helped out and did it for the following day. During the week I came to the junior training before my training started, did some drills with them, feed feathers, played with them with my own feathers to gave experience with a decent shuttle. I don't want to advertise myself, but I think this is a attitude of dream-mate in every german badminton club. I'm not the best player which can flip a whole season of a club, but so what? It makes me really sad that these things what I gave are worthless and nearly nobody gave me anything back, which was just improvement, even worse: nobody understands my problem. This hurts.
I know how you feel. The club I played for last season had 3 teams (1x BOL, 2x BL) when I joined and now I had to leave because there is only one team left because most of the members left due to moving, personal reasons and differences. Personally, I don't care a lot about league play but the actual training - the actual games I get during club nights, not training in a "doing drills, practicing things" sense. So I'd rather play 1 or 2 leagues lower and have good games during training instead. I'm going back to my old club now. I know your problem too well. It's difficult to get new players when a lot of current members are leaving and not many are left. Also it's becoming more difficult to get the good players to stay when everybody is leaving. Sorry to say, but I have no solution so far. All the things I have in mind already have been mentioned (investing in the juniors even more, Spielgemeinschaften, organizing tournaments, going to tournaments and talking to people). Eventually, I can understand your decision. When you do so much for a particular club and get nothing in return, it might be the only option to leave, honestly. From my experience you can't change people, so if you are no longer happy at your current club, might as well change. Don't lose your drive and motivation! I hope that you will find a club where you can still participate in the junior development, training, organizing tournaments/league games and so on. Hopefully you will find a small group of people that have the same goal as you.
In England I think clubs everywhere are losing players What is odd to me is teams do not seem to have much cameraderie but each man or woman for themselves! On another tack I do not see any creativity in league scoring systems. They are boring and in some ways a bit predictable. Where I was playing it is 2 pts for a win and that's it. No accpount of the points totals or rubbers won to make it more interesting. If you are up against a very tough pair it leaves very little incentive because a win is a win and the loser's points is irrelevant. I have not seen many good badminton league website (but maybe i have to search further) but some i have seen do not inspire much. There does not seem to be teamwork where I have played but egos wanting to prove something. I know this puts a lot of people off as they have told me. Then there is turning out for matches in winter evenings which has not much appeal for some. It would be better possibly if matches could be played daytime at wekends? But then people may be too busy. I would say if clubs were a bit more welcoming they might draw new players in. Some clubs I have visited are not welcoming but out to beat you to score peer points! It must be great to be a part of a team culture in some sports but I have hardly ever seen this in amateur badminton. Another reason clubs lose players is there are many other hobbies and interests for self improvement. I have hardly ever seen coaching at a league club and the one time I did it was one coach with 20 players queuing up to smash a shuttle and going round and round in turn. I was in this but this was dull and as helpful as wheels on a ship. It looks like badminton is behind the times. I don't think it has modern appeal. People have been harping on about the new serve rules when it is simple really like someone said. You serve from the rear tramlines however you like and do away with all the height and racket angle nonsense. Badminton needs to take lessons from volleyball and table tennis in my view. They can't make upo their mind what scoring system to use and the whole service routine is a joke. Plus is there any advantage to serving like in other sport? Not really. It is like a catalogiue of reasons why clubs are losing players.
It can't be that bad, or else there wouldn't be any good English players - how do these train? In this regard, I feel the German system is quite healthy at the junior level, with lot of clubs feeding into the state-level academies, and a number of top clubs being able to offer very good training, and some flagship clubs being BEC training centers, able to produce players that can play at the top level in Europe (and occasionally, the world). Only at the senior level there is some scarcity, but I've yet to find a club that isn't fine with me training on one of their courts. In regards to team building, one simple approach I like is coaching during team matches, either from the own team or from one of the higher ones. Choosing jerseys and jackets as a team or club can also help to build team/club identity. You forgot to mention one important part of the suggestion to adapt the tennis serve: It was a joke. If you read through the posts there, you can see that it was thoroughly denounced. To list a few of the major problems of such a rule change: Beginners would find it much harder to pick up the sport. A great strength of badminton is that you can just buy a 15€ garden set or loan a racket at a center and start playing. Among the various racket sports, only table tennis and some badminton variants can rival this ease of starting to play. At junior and low level singles, the serve would have strong negative feedback, because it's not an easy shot. In the first year, many would struggle to put the serve over the net. At the professional level, especially in men's doubles and mixed doubles, it would lead to positive feedback, which, despite the name, is not a good property in sports, as it makes matches boring instead of close. It also comes with other negative side-effects; for instance, you require a resigning culture to avoid these boring parts. Chess has the problem that from the point of view of many spectators, one player suddenly resigns or accepts a draw (nowadays, tournaments limit draws and players are encouraged to play out to an obvious position). It would be the biggest change in badminton by far - assuming it would have serious adoption chances, which it doesn't. Costs in retraining, distribution, friction effects of the change, and discussions/protests would be massive. Note that the (very minor) changes of rules is precisely what you denounce in your post before! Badminton courts would require more space. Modern multisports halls are designed with the current badminton rules in mind, and typically a badminton court just fits in (15m is a common sizing, which just matches the 13,40m court and 80cm required buffer at both ends). Even if norming committees and architects all over the world would accept your proposal immediately, and all schools, universities, cities, states, countries, foundations, and companies would from now on allocate 2m more per hall module, it's going to be decades until the newly-built halls replace the old ones. What makes you think that? The scoring system has been r3x21_30 for 12 years now, with only a couple of experiments in between. Note that also both r3x21_30 and the recently proposed but ultimatively declined r5x11_15 are very simple to understand - the rally winner wins a point, and you win a game once you reach at least 21/11 with two points advantage, or 30/15. You win a match once you win 2/3 games. That's literally it. I am very happy with both systems. Can you elaborate why you think that? Which rules would you add/change/remove, and why? Again, with a machine-evaluated 1.15m I would be very happy - the rules are simple to understand, and a new spectator really needs to know nothing more than you must serve from below 1.15m to understand the sport. Why would serving being an advantage be a good idea in the first place? As laid out above, if the winner of the last rally serves, it would lead to positive feedback, which we strongly want to avoid.
