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Flooring Professionals To The Leisure Industry
Courtship Flooring is a commercial sports flooring contractor working in Worcestershire and across the UK. Our work covers school estates, leisure facilities and clubs, with maintenance contracts forming a growing share.
Trading since 1987 and family-owned throughout, we handle indoor sports and commercial timber floors from first survey to long-term aftercare, with our own crew and equipment on site at every stage. Domestic and residential projects are the province of 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
A typical plan covers an annual machine deep clean, a written condition inspection, recoating when the seal genuinely warrants it, minor repairs, relining as required and pendulum slip testing with a report.
Just as importantly it includes training your own team on the correct daily and weekly routine, because the majority of the work protecting a floor happens between our visits rather than during them.
The numbers are not subtle. A floor deep cleaned properly and recoated on schedule will run a decade between full sands. The same floor left until it looks bad needs machines back in half that time, and every full sand permanently spends timber.
Across the life of a floor, planned maintenance costs materially less than reactive work while keeping the facility presentable throughout rather than cycling between shabby and refurbished.
Organisations with several buildings frequently end up with floors on entirely different trajectories, because each was maintained separately by whoever was available.
Bringing an estate onto a single maintenance schedule produces consistent standards, predictable budgeting and one set of records. It also means nobody has to work out which hall is quietly about to fail.
Not every floor we save sits in a sports centre. St Katherine’s had the kind of well-loved, well-worn hall floor that carries badminton one evening and a community event the next, and the committee wanted it rescued rather than replaced.
We restored it completely. The hall is now set for another few decades of everything it is asked to do.
~ 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
Commercial and public buildings need documentation, and providing it in advance rather than on request is part of what distinguishes a specialist contractor.
Before the work you receive method statements and risk assessments specific to the job rather than a generic template, COSHH data sheets for every product we will bring on site, and copies of our public liability and employers liability insurance.
For school sites we provide DBS details for the staff attending, and we work to whatever additional safeguarding arrangements the school or trust requires. Our teams are used to signing in, wearing identification and staying within agreed areas.
On main contractor sites we work to site rules, attend inductions and provide progress reporting in whatever format the contract requires.
At handover you get the product data sheets, the cure times in writing, aftercare guidance and, where requested, the pendulum slip resistance certificate. It goes into the facilities file as a complete record rather than a folder of assurances.
Gym floors fail differently from every other floor in a building, because the damage is point loading rather than even wear.
Dropped dumbbells, plate loaded machines dragged rather than lifted, benches shuffled across boards and racks bolted down and later moved all leave dents and gouges. Sanding removes a surface but a deep dent stays a dent, and part of our survey is telling you which marks will come out and which will not.
Chalk and sweat are the other half. Both soak into timber wherever the seal has worn through, and chalk in open grain can leave a permanent grey cast in the lifting area.
Rubber matting laid straight onto a sealed floor and left down for years traps moisture and can bond to the lacquer, so lifting it takes the finish with it. It is one of the main reasons gym floors arrive in worse condition than the sports hall next door.
The answer is usually a harder finish, an extra coat in the free weight zone, and a proper lifting platform where the weights actually land.
Markings are the part of a floor everybody looks at, and the part most often got wrong.
We set out from current governing body dimensions using laser and tape, not by copying what is already on the floor. Courts that have been remarked by tracing the previous set drift over the years, and a surprising number of halls turn out to have netball thirds that are not equal or three point arcs that are not true.
On timber the lines go down between coats of seal so the paint finishes under the final lacquer. That single detail is why our markings last as long as the finish, while lines applied on top of a completed floor start lifting within a season.
We will also ask what is actually played. Most halls carry markings for at least one sport nobody has taught in years, and removing redundant sets does more for clarity than any amount of clever colour choice. Fewer lines, correctly dimensioned, in colours that separate properly under your own lighting.
The question we are asked most often, and the answer comes down to three measurements rather than an opinion.
The first is the remaining wear layer. Every full sand takes timber off, and a floor that has been through many cycles may be close to its fixings. Once a sander reaches the tongue the board is finished, and nothing changes that.
The second is the structure. Isolated failed pads and battens are routine repairs. A system that has failed widely, or one that never suited the hall, is a different proposition.
The third is moisture. A slab with an active problem will destroy any floor laid on it, new or refurbished, until the cause is dealt with.
If the wear layer is adequate, the structure is largely sound and the slab is dry, refurbishment is almost always better value and will give many more years. Where those things are not true we say so plainly, because a refurbishment on a failing floor is money spent twice.
Worcestershire brings us school and academy sport, independent school facilities, leisure centres and a substantial number of village and church halls.
School halls are the largest group. Independent schools in the county tend to maintain their floors on a proper cycle and come to us for preventative screen and recoat work. Academy and state halls more often arrive overdue, with the finish worn through and markings that have been copied rather than set out for several remarks running.
Granwood appears regularly in the older school and church halls here. It is a composite block laid in a bitumen bed rather than timber, it needs a specialist approach, and a Granwood floor with sound blocks is almost always worth restoring at a fraction of the cost of replacement.
Leisure and community sports facilities follow, where keeping the building trading means overnight working.
Village halls and club buildings make up the rest, and those old timber floors usually have plenty of depth left under decades of polish.
Worcestershire has a good deal of older school and church hall stock, so the project worth knowing about is St George School in Ascot.
That hall had a Granwood floor which more than one contractor had condemned as beyond saving. Granwood is a composite block of wood flour and cement laid in a bitumen bed rather than timber, with no grain and no wear layer in the usual sense. Sanded like timber it is permanently damaged, and its bed softens with heat. We assessed the blocks, rebedded the loose ones, replaced those that had broken up, prepared the surface with appropriate abrasives and coated it with a modified epoxy system, with the line markings applied within the system rather than sitting on top of it.
The floor has years of life left at a fraction of the cost of replacement, which would also have meant lifting a bitumen bed.
For community buildings, St Katherine Hall is the closer parallel: an old timber floor under decades of polish, restored rather than replaced.
Size, condition and specification set the price. We survey free of charge, take moisture readings and measure remaining board depth, then quote a fixed sum with the scope itemised. If a cheaper approach will genuinely work, that is what we will recommend.
The whole area and its neighbouring counties. We have worked the length of the UK since 1987, and remote projects are simply planned more thoroughly rather than priced at a premium.
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, including cradle, sports batten, pad and board and duo batten systems, specified against the sports being played and the build height available.
Usually within a couple of weeks, and sooner where a floor has become a safety concern. The survey is free and takes under an hour for most halls.
Dust mop daily to lift grit, damp mop with a neutral cleaner made for sealed sports timber, and never use polish, wax or anything promising shine. We hand over written guidance with every job.
No. Every job is carried out by our own directly employed team using our own machinery. It is why we can commit to a finish date and why the standard is the same on the last day as the first.
Usually because the expansion gaps at the perimeter have closed or been blocked, or because moisture is coming up through the slab. Both need diagnosing before refinishing, or the cause simply repeats.
A typical hall takes one to two weeks from first machine to final coat, depending on size, how much board repair is needed and how many coats the seal requires. You get a day by day programme before we start.
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.
No. We are a commercial contractor working on schools, leisure centres, universities, clubs and public buildings. The machinery, finishes and insurance are different from domestic work.
Book a free survey of your floor in Worcestershire 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.