Kent Badminton volunteer Mike Harding retires at 88-years-old

Beloved badminton volunteer Mike Harding is formally calling it a day after a long time of giving again to the sporting group.

The 88-year-old has been an integral member of Kent Badminton since he first picked up a racket aged 36.

It led to a volunteering profession impressed by a love of the game, and dropped at life by Kent Badminton Competitions Officer and shut good friend Phil Jones within the mid-2000s, with the duo occurring to work collectively on tournaments for the subsequent 18 years.

However with age and dwindling eyesight taking part in an element, Harding lastly made the robust resolution to step away from volunteering in March of 2025, and with it, dropped at a detailed a long-standing partnership with badminton.

“Phil ran the tournaments and I helped with the whole lot else, doing various things,” he mentioned.

“They have been lengthy days, generally from quarter to seven within the morning till 9 or ten at evening.

“However my eyes bought worse within the new yr, and I used to be advisable by the optician to cease driving, in order that signifies that I can’t get to and from the tournaments.

“Together with a number of different aches and pains within the physique, one factor got here to a different and I made a decision in March that that was that.”

Harding has been within the sport as a participant since 1970 and solely stepped away from taking part in Masters tournaments aged 70, as a substitute getting concerned in teaching and dealing typically as a volunteer.

He was eager to remain concerned within the sport for so long as he might and provides again to the youthful gamers who have been simply starting their very own badminton journeys.

“I began truly taking part in once I was 36 after which from the age of 40 onwards, I performed county masters or veterans because it was referred to as then proper up till I used to be 70,” he mentioned.

“Once I retired in 1998, I additionally began some teaching and I’ve been volunteering for the previous 18 years or so.

“I’ve all the time loved it. While you cease taking part in, you simply don’t cease having fun with the game. I simply wished to do one thing else.

“The volunteering is sweet since you get the thanks, not solely from the folks you’re truly working with, but additionally from the gamers.

“From the juniors to the masters to the England nationwide gamers, they’re very appreciative of the period of time you truly give and what you do, which is gorgeous to see.”

Harding is one in every of many volunteers throughout the nation who assist convey grassroots and home badminton tournaments to life.

It’s a task he has cherished through the years, permitting him to maintain throughout the sport and watch athletes develop into achieved badminton gamers.

He added: “Seeing all of the particularly the children, from after they have been beginning to play and step by step going by means of, to a few of them now being of their 40s and 50s is superb.

“You see them truly bettering they usually actually recognize you continue to being there all these years.”

As Chair of Kent Badminton, Jo Newson has been entrance and centre to witness Harding’s dedication to the game over the previous few years.

From serving to decide up shuttlecocks to late nights packing up, Harding has achieved all of it, together with volunteering for nearly all the 26 tournaments and occasions that Kent Badminton placed on throughout a single yr.

But it surely’s his joking antics and welcoming character that Newson will miss probably the most.

“From a pure volunteer perspective, he’s been implausible and then you definitely add in his dry sense of humour as effectively,” she added.

“He’s all the time sitting by the courts and watching. Once I’ve performed in tournaments, he’ll make some dry little remark like ‘what occurred to your backhand there Jo!’.

“He knew quite a bit concerning the sport and he knew all of the gamers.

“All people simply preferred having a chat with him earlier than or after occurring court docket and he simply made it a pleasant place to be.

“I wished him to be recognised as a result of he’s a kind of unsung heroes. He’s by no means requested for something and was simply all the time there. We’re going to overlook him quite a bit.”

Should you’d prefer to volunteer for Kent Badminton, you may attain out on their web site.