Mia* still takes her netball kit to work every Tuesday, despite knowing there’s an increasing chance her team won’t get to play. It’s not the weather that tends to determine whether she and her fellow twenty- and thirtysomethings can use the courts on Clapham Common — it’s teenagers. Specifically, whether large groups have gathered after school or over the weekend as part of so-called “link-ups” or “TikTok parties” circulating on social media. On some days, the courts are free. On others, they’re taken over by crowds of “intimidating” under-18s, with matches cancelled or postponed as groups refuse to move on.
The pattern isn’t entirely predictable, but it tends to cluster around school holidays and bank holiday weekends, when there are more young people in the area with time to congregate and little formal structure to their day.
