Ocean Badminton Academy is based in the seaside town of South Shields. In recent years, the club has grown from a small, informal group of players into a thriving hub that brings people together from all over South Tyneside.
Ocean’s volunteer head coach Abu Siddique was named the sport’s 2025 grassroots coach of the Year, rewarded for his tireless and dedicated coaching commitment for a wide range of players, young and old. As part of our Club Spotlight series, Abu shares his story, the club’s journey, and the values at its heart.
From recovery to inspiration
I have been playing badminton from a very young age, going back to school and college. I played football, ran cross country, and obviously badminton. But then I got a back injury, and for five years was told I would never play sports again.
Eventually I got a second opinion, and the advice was to try any non-contact sports, so I took up badminton again. So I thought, let’s see if I can start promoting and helping people that have gone through the same kind of experience. And the other thing was, I come from an Asian background and when I was young I found it difficult to fit into clubs and other places. So I thought, let’s see if I can start something off to help the BME groups within South Tyneside. Then we’ll try and expand once we grow a little.
An inclusive ambition
I got a few of my friends together that played socially, to see if we could do something to help the wider communities. We started off as a Bangladeshi club, but the plan was to be inclusive, not just the BMEs, but everyone. So we got everybody involved. When I saw my youngest son pick up a racquet at the age of three, he looked so natural. And I said to myself, I need to get these kids involved. So I started out with one kid, and I ended up with 73!
Once I got a few kids in, the doors opened and everybody wanted to come in. But we had no qualified coaches, so one thing led to another and I went through my coaching badges.
A multicultural welcome
The difficulty that we faced in being inclusive to all was the language barrier. It is a multicultural town that we live in, and there are various languages spoken in the area. English isn’t always the main language.
Thankfully, I’m also an interpreter, so I was able to help with communication. Even if someone spoke to me in broken English, I can usually make sense of it.
No Strings badminton
We have kids starting as young as six years old, while the oldest is 85. I started a campaign on Facebook to get people over 60 interested in badminton, and we had 10 people sign up. And that’s when I decided to start a ‘No Strings’ group, playing badminton with plastic shuttles. It’s just social play with no coaching involved.
Expansion and growth
We currently have five assistant coaches and one head coach but, at the moment, one thing that we are lacking is space. I’m also a trustee of the community centre where we play, and we are in the process of building a new youth centre which will have more courts. So we’ll have additional courts, not just for badminton but for multi sports. So hopefully, within the next year we’ll be expanding more and be able to welcome bigger and more badminton groups.
Open sessions
On Sunday mornings between 11pm-12pm we have our beginners session for kids ages from 6 to 11. Then from 12pm-2pm we have an open session for juniors and seniors. If someone is over 11 years old and good enough to play with the seniors, I like to mix and match them so they get more practice. We don’t do coaching between those two hours, it’s mostly play time.
On Monday we do a girls-only session, which is from 6pm-7pm. Then on a Tuesday evening, we do advanced boys from 6pm-8pm. At the moment, we’re limited for space, but we are looking to have more sessions available once we get the new sports hall.
Find out more about the Ocean Badminton Academy
