Badminton is a sport I played a fair bit when I was younger – my mum is a very good player who represented her county, and I used to go once a week for a couple of years when we lived in Kidbrooke. I’m sure my mum used to let us win a few points when we played against her, before a natural competitive instinct came out and she’d win the last couple of points.

There can’t be many sports with such a wide demographic that can play together in the same games on a fairly level playing field, and at this session in Basingstoke there were kids all the way up to a couple of blokes who must have been pushing 70. It’s all about the wrist action so I’m told, and keeping your racket up, and I got back into a rhythm with it after a couple of games of doubles.

There’s a few sports I don’t play at the moment which I am saving for when I can’t or don’t want to run about as much. Golf is one, as are darts, snooker, and badminton, and it was heartening to be taken to match point by a septuagenarian. Like the 50-year old at vets football who controls the midfield without moving out of the centre circle, this bloke barely moved an inch and sent me sprinting around all over the place.

It hasn’t got the glamour of tennis, there aren’t Bounce-style badminton bars in London, it doesn’t draw the overweight businessmen in the same way that squash does, and it is hard to get passionate about it, but it’s the most inclusive and family-friendly racket sport, and I’ll definitely play again, but probably in about 20 years.