HAVING helped introduce Cornwall to pickleball, John Mills represented his adopted county at the 2025 Knotty’s English Nationals in Bolton recently.

The 76-year-old from Redruth was one of over 1,300 competitors taking part across 57 age and skill categories in the fifth year of the prestigious competition.

Captain of Kernow Pickleball Club, Mills first took up the sport in the Midlands before a move down to the Duchy saw him strengthen his involvement with the sport.

“When I lived in the Midlands, I used to play squash at the David Lloyd club in Derby,” the retired electrical engineer said.

“And one of the guys that I knew there had a place in Florida and came back on several occasions and said you really should get into pickleball. One day, he forced us to play, and it clicked from then on in.

“I was playing there for two years, and then we moved to Cornwall and brought it down there. We started playing just friendlies, and then it all went from there. Now we have over 200 members in the club.

“When I moved down to Cornwall, I started playing with my son in singles, some people watched us playing and joined in, and it grew organically like that.

“People would see what we were doing, and we quickly got a regular pool of people playing over two or three months.

“I then met a lady who was playing pickleball independently from us in Falmouth, and that is when we joined forces, and that is where the club came from.”

Thursday and Friday saw the over 50s in action in the mixed, men’s and women’s doubles, before the open age categories take centre stage at the Bolton Arena on Saturday and Sunday.

Pickleball is a fast-growing racket sport which originated in the USA in the 1960s.

And Mills loved being part of the action in Bolton as the sport continues to grow across the UK.

He added: “This is always one of our favourite venues, it has got a nice atmosphere to it.

“It is daunting playing here, but nevertheless it is good fun. We just enjoy playing, and it is nice to get the medals, but we enjoy being involved.

“I really liked pickleball for its inclusivity and its friendliness. Wherever you go, you meet some nice friends.

“It is outstanding, we are getting lots of enquiries all the time and living in Cornwall, we get a lot of visitors, so we get calls from people asking us where they can play when they are down on holiday.”

Pickleball developed as a backyard game in Washington, and is named after the pickle boat in rowing, which sees spare rowers from different teams form a crew.

The name reflects the sport, which has borrowed from other racket sports, as it is played on a badminton doubles-sized court and features playing styles seen in tennis and table tennis.

The game is played with a solid paddle and a perforated plastic ball, while players can only score points on their serve.

Pickleball England had a record number of players at the 2025 Knotty’s English Nationals. The tournament got underway on Thursday, October 30 and runs until this Sunday (November 2) at Bolton Arena.

For more information, visit https://www.pickleballengland.org/