Hi everyone, After a break of 29 years I found Badminton again last year, Wanted my 10 year old son to take it up and have ended up helping out at his coaching sessions and enjoy playing whenever possible subject to fitness.

When I last played I was 16, at school and nine stone, now 46 and 15 stone which is the heaviest I have been, Tried to get fit but have been plagued with injuries, plantar fasciitis, damaged pataelar tendons on both knees (Getting up and down stairs is a problem) and the sorest of all sciatica which had me off for 3 weeks, has it stopped me. no chance, but the inability to compete and beat players I was beating last summer due to my new limitations is frustrating.

I have bought a basic stringing machine (Pro’s Pro shuttle express) and have done 20+ rackets so far, tough at first getting stuck at shared holes, strings snapping and wrong stringing patterns but getting there now.

Derek Hughes