Badminton

University of Birmingham Badminton Club consists of over 190 members, ranging from national standard players who compete on the international circuit, through to social players who enjoy playing on a recreational basis. We welcome all levels of players. The club consistently achieves excellent results and is amongst the top four of all the competing universities in the UK.

Currently the badminton club has four men’s teams and three women’s teams who are successful in competing in BUCS. We are very fortunate to have an excellent coach in Lorraine Cole, who has previously coached England under-19s. We also have two assistant coaches in Tim Hull and Danny Leinster.

The badminton club is closely linked with the West Midlands Performance Centre and their junior programme who train at University of Birmingham Sport & Fitness.

Join Us

How to get involved

To find out more about how to get involved with the club, please use the red ‘contact us’ button to contact the club directly, or message us on any of our social media pages using the links provided. If you are a performance player, you can contact our coaches directly using the key contact list below 🙂

Membership fees
Squad members (A and B) – £180
Social members – £90

Please note that on top of the club fee there is a £16 fee that covers personal accident insurance when training or competing for the University, access to free cross-training sessions such as circuits and yoga, as well as a contribution to the costs of affiliation to various national governing bodies. This fee is only payable once so if you did decide to join a second club then you would not need to pay a second fee.

Training times & venues

Performance Squad

Monday – 4:30-6:30 – singles, 6:30-8:30pm – doubles

Tuesdays – 4:30 – 6:30pm singles and doubles plus extra WMPC training opportunities

Wednesday – BUCS Matches Thursday 5:30-7:30/ 7:30-10:30pm (league matches)

Thursday – 5:30pm-7:30pm – extra WMPC training opportunities

Sunday – 2hrs personal development

Development Squad

Monday – 4:30-6:30 singles, 6:30-8:30 doubles

Tuesday – 3-4:30pm

Wednesday – BUCS matches

Saturday – 11-1pm

Sunday – 2hrs personal development

Social and Community

Friday – 7:30-10:30pm (8 courts)

All sessions are in the Munrow Arena, University of Birmingham Sport & Fitness.

Meet the coaches

HEAD COACH

Lorraine Cole
Lorraine is an ex international player, who was ranked 10 and 12 in the world for Ladies Doubles and Mixed Doubles respectively, as well as being the no.1 for both at European level. She was previously the England U17/19 coach for a total of 15 years, and is currently the West Midlands Performance Centre Head Coach and Worcestershire County Junior Head Coach.

Assistant Coach: Tim Hull

Assistant Coach: Danny Leinster

Successes and Achievements

BUCS Nationals
We take our top 16 players to this annual event to play against universities across the country over a weekend in February.

Level of competition/participation:

Men’s 1 – BUCS Northern Premier Division
Men’s 2 – BUCS Midlands 2A
Men’s 3 – BUCS Midlands 2B
Men’s 4 – BUCS Midlands 4B
Women’s 1 – BUCS Northern Premier Division
Women’s 2 – BUCS Midlands Tier 1
Women’s 3 – BUCS Midlands Tier 3

Current Scholars and Notable Alumni

Current Scholars

Evelyn Yu – Hong Kong Junior International
Samodani Wijetunge – England Junior International and U19 National Singles Champion
Tamara Prostinakova – Slovakia International

Notable Alumni

Alyssa Lim – England International
James Lauder – Junior International and National Champion
Nicola Gresty – Junior International

Key contacts

Head Coach: Lorraine Cole

Club captains: Ruchika Madhotra & Lydia Ip