{"id":775416,"date":"2026-09-19T04:28:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T04:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/775416\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T04:28:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T04:28:11","slug":"prince-harry-plays-pickleball-with-birmingham-pupils","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/775416\/","title":{"rendered":"Prince Harry plays pickleball with Birmingham pupils"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Duke of Sussex joined schoolchildren in Birmingham for a game of pickleball as he launched a new Invictus Games education programme.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Prince Harry visited Ninestiles Academy in Acocks Green to mark the launch of Inspire, a scheme designed to use stories from Invictus competitors to teach children about resilience and mental fitness.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Dressed casually in a dark polo shirt and jeans, the duke appeared relaxed as he played with pupils and later answered their questions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">During several rallies against Year 7 and Year 11 students, he joked his back was hurting after reaching for a low shot and applauded youngsters when they won points.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Asked who inspired him, the duke replied: &#8220;It&#8217;s not a single person, it&#8217;s a whole group of people.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Pointing to Invictus competitors, he added: &#8220;It&#8217;s these guys. This Invictus community of people who get knocked down but keep getting back up.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Invictus Games, founded by Prince Harry for wounded, injured and sick military personnel and veterans, will be held in Birmingham in 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Duke of Sussex joined schoolchildren in Birmingham for a game of pickleball as he launched a new&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":775417,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-775416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}