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Flooring Professionals To The Leisure Industry
Courtship Flooring is a commercial sports flooring contractor working in Derbyshire and across the UK. Our work ranges from city academies to rural facilities where access and entrance wear are the defining issues.
We have been specialising in indoor sports and commercial timber floors since 1987. The business is family-run, nothing is subcontracted, and the crew who survey a building are the crew who work on it. Domestic and residential projects fall outside what we do and are looked after by our sister company, Ryan’s Restorations.
Overnight/Weekend Installations
Professional Cleaning Demonstrations
Squash Court Maintenance
Recommended Cleaning Products
Professional Pendulum Slip Testing
Deep Clean & Reseal Service
Users report vague symptoms: the floor feels dead in one area, or slippery, or noisy. Each points to a different cause, and treating the symptom instead of the cause wastes money.
Dead areas indicate a failed resilient layer or a batten that has lost contact. Slipperiness usually means cleaning residue rather than a worn seal. Squeaking generally traces to fixings or sub-floor ventilation. We diagnose before quoting, because the right repair is frequently far cheaper than the assumed one.
Abrasive material walked in from outside does more damage to a sealed floor than any sport. Sand, grit and stone particles act like sandpaper underfoot and will cut through a new finish years before its time.
Effective matting at every entrance, properly sized barrier zones and a cleaning routine that actually removes grit rather than redistributing it will comfortably double the life of a finish. We advise on all of it as part of handover.
Localised problems deserve localised solutions. A water-damaged section, a small area of impact damage or a failed patch near a doorway can usually be cut out and repaired without touching the rest of the floor.
Timber is matched by species and grade so the repair blends into the surrounding surface, and where the whole floor is then sanded and sealed the join disappears entirely. Because repairs are done in-house, small jobs are viable rather than an inconvenience.
Harris Academy wanted a sports floor to match its ambitions, so we fitted a complete Junckers solid-beech sports system, the same Danish flooring specified in elite competition venues, finished with full multi-sport line markings.
An installation like that is a long-term statement: properly maintained, it will outlast every pupil currently on the roll. The project ran to programme from bare sub-floor to handover.
~ Matthew Evans
An outstanding company to deal with and they couldn’t have been better to work with. St George’s Ascot now has a stunning new sports hall floor and we are delighted. From quote, support, delivery and after sales, the Team has been brilliant. Thank you. 
~ James Anderson
Community buildings ask more of a floor than almost anything else, because the same square metres take a toddler group, a badminton club, a parish meeting, a fitness class and a wedding reception in the same week.
The characteristic damage is scoring from chairs and tables going out and back constantly, rather than the concentrated wear a sports hall shows. That is good news, because fine scoring sands out easily and these floors usually have plenty of timber left.
The other characteristic is decades of polish. Many community halls have been polished for thirty years, and that build up has to be removed chemically before sanding or it clogs every abrasive. We allow for it rather than discovering it.
We quote these jobs by element so a committee can see exactly what each part costs and phase it across two years if the funds require. That transparency matters more here than anywhere, and it is why much of this work comes by recommendation from one committee to another.
For a leisure operator, floor work is a revenue problem before it is a maintenance problem, and we programme accordingly.
Closing a sports hall stops booking income immediately, and members notice. So most of this work happens overnight or across quiet weeks, sequenced so the noisiest operations fall when the rest of the building is emptiest. Sealing at the end of a shift means the floor is walkable by opening.
Dust control matters more in a leisure centre than almost anywhere, because air handling is usually shared between spaces and a pool hall carries dust remarkably well. Sealed extraction and proper screening keep the rest of the building usable.
Operators running facilities on contract often have obligations about facility standards, which makes documented condition and slip resistance testing genuinely useful rather than administrative. We provide the certificates as a matter of course.
Where an operator holds several sites, a phased programme across the estate is almost always better value than site by site reaction.
Netball is played on hard stops. The footwork rule means players land, plant and pivot rather than running through the ball, which puts a specific demand on the surface.
Grip has to be predictable. A player receiving in the goal circle needs to stop dead and trust the floor, and a surface polished smooth through the centre third is a genuine injury risk rather than an inconvenience.
A full court is 30.5 by 15.25 metres in three equal thirds, with a 0.9 metre centre circle and goal circles of 4.9 metre radius. Lines are 50 millimetres wide, and because the lines count as part of the area they enclose, marking them thin genuinely changes the game.
England Netball asks for 3.05 metres of run off for competitive play, which few school halls achieve. Where a hall cannot take a full court we mark a proportionally reduced court or lay out for a junior format, rather than marking something tight to the walls that is unsafe to play on.
Facilities managers are usually working to a figure set before anybody looked at the floor, so it helps to know what moves it.
Area is the obvious factor, and bigger halls are cheaper per square metre because mobilisation is spread further. A four court hall almost always works out better value per metre than a single studio.
Condition matters more than size. A screen and recoat is a fraction of the cost of a full sand. Board repairs, replacing damaged sections and dealing with a failed subfloor all add, and they are the items that appear once the old lacquer comes off.
Markings are priced by what you need rather than what is there. Removing three redundant sets makes the hall clearer and the job cheaper.
Access and hours are the last variable. A hall we can work in continuously through a holiday costs less than the same hall done overnight around evening bookings. We quote both where it helps you weigh disruption against money.
Derbyshire gives us a mix of academy and school sport, leisure facilities and a substantial amount of older community building stock, and each brings a different problem.
School and academy halls are the largest group. Many date from the nineteen sixties and seventies with sprung timber floors that are structurally sound but have gone too long between refinishes. Those are almost always better restored than replaced, and a survey usually finds more life left in them than the school expects.
Granwood turns up regularly in this part of the country, in school halls and church halls alike. It needs a specialist approach rather than timber sanding, and a great many Granwood floors described as finished simply need rebedding, appropriate preparation and the right coating system.
Village and community halls are the third group, and they are frequently the most rewarding work we do. Decades of polish, scoring from chairs and tables, and a floor underneath that has plenty of depth left.
We quote by element throughout so a school or a hall committee can phase the work across two budget years if that is what makes it possible.
Most Derbyshire enquiries come down to one of three situations.
The first is a school hall where the traffic lanes have worn through to bare timber while the perimeter still looks presentable. Once the seal has gone, dirt gets into open grain and stains, and there is a point beyond which sanding will not fully lift it. Catching that early is the difference between a straightforward refinish and a compromised result.
The second is Granwood in older school and church halls. It needs a specialist approach rather than timber sanding, and most of the Granwood floors we are asked to look at are worth saving rather than replacing.
The third is community halls where decades of polish have built up over the floor. That has to be removed chemically before any sanding, because it clogs abrasives, and it is the item most often missed in quotations from firms that do not do this work regularly.
Court markings wear out long before the floor underneath them does, and recognising that is what saves facilities a great deal of money.
A timber sports floor might run eight to ten years between full refinishes. The markings on it, particularly in a netball centre third or a basketball key, can look tired in half that. If the seal is still sound and still gripping properly, replacing the whole finish because the lines have faded is an expensive way to solve a cheap problem.
The test we apply at survey is simple. If the lacquer is intact across the floor and only the markings have gone, you need relining. If the lacquer has worn through to bare timber in the traffic lanes, you need a refinish and the markings come as part of it. Somewhere between the two, a screen and recoat with fresh line marking usually gives the best value.
We will tell you which of the three your hall needs, and we would far rather quote the cheaper option and see you again in five years than sell a full sand nobody needed.
It depends on what the floor actually needs. A deep clean is the least expensive intervention, a recoat sits in the middle, a full sand and seal above that, and replacement is the rare last resort. We survey free of charge and price every realistic option so you can choose on evidence.
All of it, plus the surrounding region. Everything is surveyed, agreed and priced before we set off, so there are no additional travel charges appearing partway through a project.
Yes, and we do regularly. If a floor needs nothing more than a proper clean, that is what we will say. It costs us a job and earns us the next five.
Yes, and it is the norm. Each sport is marked to its governing body specification in a distinct colour, with the layout planned so the primary court reads instantly. Crests and badges can be sealed in at centre court.
It depends on the depth remaining above the tongue, which we measure rather than guess. A floor sanded sparingly may have several cycles left; one machined every few years may have none.
Yes, and we set out from measured dimensions rather than copying existing lines. Courts remarked by tracing the previous set drift over the years, and many halls turn out to be dimensionally out.
A light abrasion of the existing finish followed by a fresh top coat. It restores grip and appearance at a fraction of the cost of a full sand, and it works whenever the seal is worn but still intact.
Yes. We work as the specialist flooring element within refurbishment schemes and are used to main contractor site rules, inductions, permits and progress reporting.
Yes. On timber the reliable method is sanding, which removes them completely. Most halls carry markings for at least one sport nobody plays, and taking them off is the cheapest improvement available.
Satin or matt in almost every case. Gloss looks impressive at handover and shows every scuff within weeks, as well as producing noticeable glare under modern lighting.
A well maintained hall wants a light screen and recoat every two to three years and a full sand roughly every ten. Sticking to that keeps the boards alive far longer, because every full sand removes timber permanently.
Book a free survey of your floor in Derbyshire and we will tell you honestly what it needs, what it will cost and how quickly it can happen. Call 01823 674562 or send us a message.