Sobell Badminton Hall in Holloway: 8 Courts, Casual Bookings

Sobell Leisure Centre sits on Hornsey Road in Islington, a five-minute walk from Holloway Road station on the Piccadilly line and a little further from Finsbury Park. The building is a long, low block from 1973, and most people walk past it on their way to the Emirates Stadium a few streets south. For badminton players in north London it matters for one reason: the sports hall holds eight full courts, and since 6 May 2025 Better has opened them to casual bookings rather than reserving the whole floor for clubs and block hire.

The centre exists because of Sir Michael Sobell, the electronics manufacturer and philanthropist, who gave the land and a £1.1 million donation to build it for Islington residents. It opened in 1973, and Better, the brand of the charitable social enterprise GLL, now runs it for the council. For decades it was one of the borough's busiest buildings, drawing around half a million visits a year to its ice rink, squash courts and sports hall.

In August 2022 a Thames Water main burst and flooded the whole ground floor. Islington Council's consultation pages describe the damage plainly: the ice rink, squash courts and soft play were condemned. The rebuild changed the mix. There is now a multi-level Active Play area, an Active Multi-Zone with trampolines and a zip line, and a new gymnastics hall, while the council chose to reinstate the eight-court sports hall that existed before the flood rather than a larger sixteen-court version.

Better describes the hall as eight badminton courts inside a multi-sport space that also carries markings for netball, volleyball, basketball, handball and pickleball. Expect a busy floor with several sets of coloured lines, so it is worth looking at the lines once before your first rally. Casual bookings cover badminton and table tennis only. Indoor football and the other team sports go through block bookings, which is why on many evenings you will see clubs on some courts and pay-and-play pairs on the rest.

Alongside straight court hire, the centre runs Social Badminton sessions, aimed at people who want a game without bringing a full four. These are the easiest entry point if you have recently moved to Holloway or Finsbury Park and do not yet know anyone who plays. For a casual booking, pack your own racket and a tube of feather or nylon shuttles, and wear non-marking indoor shoes on the sprung hall floor, which also hosts junior sessions and team sports through the week.

Better's price page for Sobell splits the week into peak and off-peak windows. Peak runs Monday to Friday 6:30am to 9am and 4pm to 10pm, plus Saturday and Sunday 8am to 1pm. Off-peak is Monday to Friday 9am to 4pm and Saturday and Sunday 1pm to 5pm. Courts priced as off-peak are also the ones least likely to be shared with club blocks, so a weekday lunch slot is the calm option if your hours allow it.

The centre itself opens Monday to Friday 6:30am to 10pm and Saturday and Sunday 8am to 6pm, which means the last weekend court is earlier than many players expect. If you want a Sunday hit, aim for the early afternoon, when the morning juniors have cleared and the off-peak window has started. Bookings are made through the Better app or website under the badminton activity and evening peak hours are when clubs and pay-and-play pairs overlap, so book a few days ahead if you want a Monday to Thursday court after work.

Arrive ten minutes early, because the reception area also serves families heading to Active Play and the Multi-Zone, and weekend queues at the desk can be long. Treat the booked hour as a hard edge: the next pair will be waiting at the side, so finishing on time and collecting your shuttles promptly keeps the hall moving. There is a café on site, open Monday to Sunday 9am to 6pm, which is handy for a drink after a lunchtime game or for waiting out the rain.

If you are a club organiser rather than a casual player, the hall is still bookable as a block for regular sessions. Several Islington groups use it, and the centre also works with Arsenal in the Community, whose programmes bring local young people into the building through the week. Seeing a coaching session on the next court is normal here, and it is part of the reason the floor stays busy until late on weekdays.

Hornsey Road runs parallel to Holloway Road, and the stretch between the leisure centre and Seven Sisters Road is a good place to cool down. Walk north and you reach the edge of Finsbury Park, one of north London's big Victorian parks, with a lake, an athletics track and long tree-lined paths. It is a natural place for a slow jog to loosen up before a booking, or a sit on the grass after an evening match in summer.

On the way, look for the former Rainbow Theatre at 232 Seven Sisters Road. It opened in 1930 as the Finsbury Park Astoria, an atmospheric cinema, and later became a music venue that hosted some of the biggest acts of the 1970s before closing at the end of 1981. It is now used by a church, but the building is still a landmark. Heading south instead, Highbury House at 75 Drayton Park houses Arsenal's offices beside the stadium, and on match days the whole area fills with red shirts.

Address: Sobell Leisure Centre, Hornsey Road, Islington, London N7 7NY. Nearest stations: Holloway Road on the Piccadilly line, and Finsbury Park on the Victoria and Piccadilly lines plus National Rail. Buses 4, 17, 29, 43, 91, 153, 253, 254, 259 and 271 all stop close by. Centre hours: Monday to Friday 6:30am to 10pm, Saturday and Sunday 8am to 6pm. Different areas of the building keep their own hours, so the café and play zones close earlier than the courts on weekdays.

Booking: casual badminton and table tennis courts through the Better app or better.org.uk. Bring: your own racket, shuttles and non-marking indoor shoes. Avoid: match days at the Emirates, when Hornsey Road and the nearby stations are crowded before and after kick-off. For a first visit, a weekday off-peak slot followed by a walk to Finsbury Park is the easiest way to see why this hall has stayed in use for more than fifty years.