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 delivered to life by Kent Badminton Competitions Officer and shut good friend Phil Jones within the mid-2000s, with the duo happening to work collectively on tournaments for the subsequent 18 years.
However with age and dwindling eyesight enjoying an element, Harding lastly made the robust resolution to step away from volunteering in March of 2025, and with it, delivered to an in depth a long-standing partnership with badminton.
“Phil ran the tournaments and I helped with every thing else, doing various things,” he mentioned.
“They had been lengthy days, generally from quarter to seven within the morning till 9 or ten at evening.
“However my eyes received worse within the new yr, and I used to be really useful by the optician to cease driving, in order that implies 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 enjoying 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 had been simply starting their very own badminton journeys.
“I began truly enjoying once I was 36 after which from the age of 40 onwards, I performed county masters or veterans because it was known 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 at all times loved it. If you cease enjoying, you simply don’t cease having fun with the game. I simply needed to do one thing else.
“The volunteering is nice 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 beautiful to see.”
Harding is one in all many volunteers throughout the nation who assist carry grassroots and home badminton tournaments to life.
It’s a job he has cherished over time, 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 once they had been beginning to play and progressively going by, to a few of them now being of their 40s and 50s is superb.
“You see them truly enhancing they usually actually admire 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 choose up shuttlecocks to late nights packing up, Harding has achieved all of it, together with volunteering for nearly the entire 26 tournaments and occasions that Kent Badminton placed on throughout a single yr.
However it’s his joking antics and welcoming persona that Newson will miss probably the most.
“From a pure volunteer perspective, he’s been unbelievable and you then add in his dry sense of humour as effectively,” she added.
“He’s at all times 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 rather a lot in regards to the sport and he knew all of the gamers.
“All people simply appreciated having a chat with him earlier than or after happening courtroom and he simply made it a pleasant place to be.
“I needed 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 at all times there. We’re going to overlook him rather a lot.”
When you’d wish to volunteer for Kent Badminton, you may attain out on their web site.
