Golden Padel: The Dorset Start-Up Riding the UK’s Fastest-Growing Sport
When a Spanish passion project met decades of sports industry expertise, something quietly brilliant happened on the courts of Dorset.
Meet Golden Padel
Golden Padel is a Dorset-based, family-run padel racket brand with a simple but powerful mission: to put the right equipment in people’s hands, grow a genuinely warm community around the sport, and do it all without losing sight of why the game matters in the first place. Founded by Jamie Carr, a tech professional and lifelong padel enthusiast, and brought to the next level through working with Mike Edwards, a seasoned sports industry veteran, Golden Padel is fast becoming a familiar and trusted name across the South of England and beyond.
The brand sells primarily through its website, goldenpadel.co.uk, and is also available through Decathlon.co.uk, with a growing presence at local padel venues including West Hants, Cross Court and Advantage Padel in Mudeford. But more than a product business, Golden Padel shows up at community events, charity days, corporate try-padel experiences, and demo days: because for Jamie and Mike, that’s where the real magic happens.
The people behind it
Jamie came to padel the way many do: through Spain. He had an apartment there, on a complex with a padel court, played regularly, fell completely in love with the sport.
That love for the game took on new meaning after he was diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a hereditary connective-tissue condition that causes chronic pain, fatigue and joint instability, and later underwent a hip replacement. Rebuilding his working life around his own energy and hours, rather than someone else’s, became the only way forward that actually worked.
“Padel gave me something to aim for when a lot else felt uncertain,” Jamie says. “Building Golden Padel around my own hours, not someone else’s, is what’s made it possible.”
With a professional background in back-end e-commerce, including work with a leading consumer electronics brand, he had exactly the digital toolkit needed to bring a brand to life. Golden Padel was born from that combination of love for the game, hard-won clarity about how he wanted to work, and technical know-how.
Mike Edwards entered the picture through a mutual friend, Nick Macey, a coach at West Hants, who recognised that Jamie’s vision needed someone who understood distribution, retail and brand-building at scale. Mike’s CV is remarkable: former CEO of a licensed fitness equipment business operating under the Adidas and Reebok brands, which he co-founded in 2001 and scaled into a global distribution operation serving major UK retailers including JJB and Sports Direct. He later took on the UK distribution for Lotto, the Italian sports brand that had also been his very first employer back in 1995.
“The first time we met, we both just went ‘wow’. Jamie told me what he wanted for the brand, and I got it. Spot on.”
But beyond the credentials, what strikes you most about both men is their genuine, uncomplicated passion for padel. Mike plays four or five times a week. He talks about the sport with the enthusiasm of someone who has genuinely found their thing; their people, their community, their second wind. “My name’s Mike Edwards, and I am a padel addict,” he says, with a grin that suggests he’s perfectly fine with that.
Keeping it beautifully simple
In a market where established Spanish brands like Bullpadel and Nox offer fifty-plus products per season, Golden Padel has taken a refreshingly different approach: four rackets in the main range, each designed to guide a player from their first court visit towards a racket that genuinely suits how they play.
“Some people want a light racket, some want power, some want control,” Jamie explains. “What we’re trying to do is educate people, not overwhelm them. There’s real technology in a quality racket. The frame, the core, the surface. A harder face gives you more power. A textured surface gives you control and spin. Basic entry-level rackets have none of that.”
Golden Padel is also quietly proud of a small but meaningful innovation: their logo is now built directly into the racket surface itself, adding a subtle textural element that contributes to grip, control and spin. Next up? Shock-absorbent technology, a timely development given the rising number of padel players coming in from tennis and finding that a solid frame behaves very differently from a strung one.
“Padel is a real turning point. It’s a sport that is here to stay, and I think it’s still absolutely in its infancy in the UK.”
Community is everything
What truly sets Golden Padel apart isn’t just the product; it’s the way they show up. Demo days, try-padel events, charity partnerships, club nights. Their most recent Golden Padel Social, held at East Dorset, sold out completely. They’re a regular presence at Cross Court and Advantage Padel in Mudeford, and they’ve built a warm collaboration with Dorset clothing brand Fortyluv, a perfect pairing of two brands at the same stage of growth, with no overlap and plenty of mutual respect. Some of that growth has come from the ground up too: a growing network of coaches, players and early supporters have championed Golden Padel from day one, introducing the rackets to new players long before there was a formal programme behind it.
Then there’s their work with Pride Padel, a padel community running events across the country, for whom Golden Padel has become a trusted partner. “They like what we’re about and we like what they’re about,” says Jamie. “It’s all about community, engagement, and getting people to try it and have fun.”
One standout moment came with a corporate padel day for Porsche Bournemouth. Where the traditional golf day has long been a male-dominated affair, a try-padel format delivered something unexpected. “The number of women that were there,” says Mike. “Porsche’s Head of Marketing was absolutely delighted. It was by far their most popular event with women customers.” It’s a glimpse of where padel is heading, and Golden Padel intends to be right at the centre of it.
Padel for the long game
Mike is 54. He plays four or five times a week, often alongside people in their twenties, including his own sons. That, he says, is the magic. “In tennis, if I play with my 23-year-old son, he drop-shots me, and I’m done. In padel, we have a genuinely competitive game. There’s no handicap needed. You find your level, you find your people.”
With an eye on Decathlon.co.uk as a marketplace and retailers beginning to approach them, Golden Padel is growing, but on their own terms. No mass discounting. No diluting the brand. Just good rackets, good people, and a sport that, as Jamie and Mike put it with a grin, is “on trend for a reason, because it’s a great community-based sport!”
Get in Touch
Golden Padel is always open to collaborations, whether you’re organising a community event, a corporate try-padel day, or simply want to get the right racket in your hand. Reach out and start a conversation.
info@goldenpadel.co.uk · www.goldenpadel.co.uk