Melbourn Squash Club member Kate Bradshaw was the star of the show in the Edinburgh leg of this season’s Home Internationals Squash Masters tournament.

The Scottish capital played host to the Women’s and Men’s O45s and O65s events over the May Bank Holiday weekend, with Kate featuring at second string for England in the Women’s O45s section. Day 1 saw England take on Ireland, Kate picking up a 3-0 win (11-5, 11-6, 11-2) victory over Sandra Walsh. This was part of a 20-0 whitewash for the England team. Another comprehensive win (20-2) followed on Day 2 against Wales, Kate again contributing a 3-0 success as she beat Clare Catto 11-4, 11-7, 11-9.

England WO45s team: Kate is second left

Days 1 and 2 were a mere prelude for the final day clash against a strong Scotland team, whose selection this year included some ex-World Tour pros. Just like England Scotland had made short work of Wales and Ireland though they did lose one string 3-2 along the way making the standings England on 40 points and Scotland on 39 ahead of the final round of games. However, with the smallest possible margin of victory being 2 points (14-12), this turned the final day clash into an effective gold medal play-off.

There was pressure on the England players given the country’s strong record in the Women’s O45s category – Nat Townsend’s side travelled north looking to continue a winning streak dating back 20 years. Few opponents during that period have been as worthy as this particular Scotland side, with strings exchanged through the encounter – England going 1-0 up when Kate Fuller won 3-0 at #5, Scotland striking back at #3 through Sabine Mackenzie, only for England to get their noses in front again when top string Catherine Ruffle picked up the third 3-0 of clash. But now things got really interesting as Scotland’s #4 Jean Saldanha edged a tight encounter with Caroline Hazelwood 3-2 to send this year’s Home International title to the final string of the final match…

… and enter Kate. She was up against her most challenging opponent yet as she took on former World No.37 Lisa McKenna. The home player edged the opening game 11-9, but Kate took a key second on a tie-break (12-10) and then completed the turn-around by edging the third 11-9. Now in control Kate completed a 3-1 victory by claiming game four 11-7, which in turned sealed a 16-7 win for England that saw them retain their title for another year. It wasn’t only Kate’s teammates who were impressed with her performance in the pressure situation – she was awarded the Player of the Tournament trophy across all four categories being played for coming through in the clutch.

England with (still!) their trophy

Kate reflected afterwards “It was an amazing finale to what had been a great weekend of squash. There was a lot of pressure on my match given England's track record of wins, but it was both an honour and a relief to be able to pull through for the team at the end. Looking up to everyone on the balcony after I'd played the final winning point was the best moment of the tournament as I could see just how much it meant to the rest of the England girls.”

Kate with her Player of the Tournament medal

Players from the 1sts and 2nds gathered for a Christmas social on Wednesday 18th December. With 12 in total and only two courts the decision was to do a doubles round robin for the Squash part (single PAR-15 games, with a deciding point at 14-all), before everyone headed for the Banyers Hotel in Royston for food afterwards.

Some pre-planning on pairings was thrown into the air by staggered arrival times, but we mostly managed to get even teams. Three pairs were competing to top the table, with the crown eventually going to Matt S and Gareth.

However with both of these guys still at the club and up for another game, and second-placed pairing Chris and Moises still around it was decided to play off for the overall crown.

A bad move from the table-toppers as opened the door to Chris and Moises taking the overall honours, the final shot of the event a proper bit of Squash genius from El Bandido Moises as a fade-away backhand overhead volley found a rolling nick out of the front backhand corner, something that not even club no.1 Matt could retrieve.

And after that it was off to dinner

But enough talk, here are some images from the Squash part of the evening:-

Kate & Miles

Match action: Mike & Jan vs Matt W & Sean

Chris on the balcony

Chris and Moises check out their opposition

Colm & James take on Matt S & Gareth

Later in the same game

And again

Another shot from Mike & Jan vs Matt W & Sean

And a third shot from this match

The decider - Chris & Moises against Matt S & Gareth

Colm & James take on Matt W & Sean

More from that match

Another shot from the deciding clash

And one more - El Bandido winds up

Miles & Kate take on Mike & Jan

Matt S & Gareth against Matt W & Sean

Kate (mostly your photographer, so someone else took this one)

With the county leagues parked for the Christmas period (the 1sts and 2nds are both comfortably mid-table in their leagues) some of the team squad members were able to turn their attention towards individual tournaments instead. Unfortunately a scheduling clash meant it was an either/or choice as the Eastern Regional leg of the England Masters Tour, which took place at Ipswich Squash Club this year, was running over the same days as the Cambridgeshire County Closed even, at it’s usual venue of Hunts County.

Kate Bradshaw opted for the Masters Series – well, she has another England place to chase and the ranking points on offer are important. That said, Kate’s position was pretty decent after winning the O45s event at the West Champs in Cheltenham last month. And despite being asked to play some relative whippersnappers as a slightly disappointing number of female entries meant no O45s draw but rather a combined O35s/40s/45s one (or just plain O35s, given that if you are over 40 you are over 35 as well!). Despite returning to a previous age group Kate was still the top seed in the draw.
She quickly demonstrated why by cruising through her pool on Saturday without dropping a game, on indeed coming close to doing so. She registered an 11-8, 11-1, 11-2 win over Jennifer Wright (Essex) in her opener (14 minutes) and then a more evenly distributed effort to see off Hampshire’s Francesca Whyte 11-6, 11-6, 11-5.

Gemma and Kate (right) - Photo Credit: England Squash Masters

Sunday saw Kate back at the venue to play her final against Gemma Barber (Devon). According to the Chairman’s report on the event “Bradshaw was too good in the final, however, lifting the ball to a great length for a 3/0 and fifth Regional Championship” Yeah, that sounds like a Katie B game.
As referenced this was title number 5 of Kate’s career on the Masters Tour. It followed hot on the heels of her fourth crown, which Kate claimed just last month by winning the O45s in the West Regional. With two of the four regional titles bag, and a run to the Semis of last years British Open Kate is well on course for another appearance in England colours at the 2025 Home Nations – she currently leads the Women’s O45 points list with 980 to her name (300 earned for each of the recent titles). Two others are close behind on 840 and 820, but then a large gap back to the fourth and fifth English players on 505 and 420 respectively.

Kate receives her Trophy from Julie-Ann Pergram. Photo Credit: England Squash Masters

More on this, and like this, to come through the rest of the season in all probability…

Whilst Kate was crushing the opposition in Ipswich, other Melbourn members were taking on the remaining cream of the Cambs Squash crop in the County Closed event at Hunts County. Four players set out for the event on Saturday morning: Matt Sampson playing the main competition draw (Mixed rather than Men’s, but with the likes of Kate and Ali Loke who are at a level to play in Grade A in action elsewhere this was an all-male draw this year), Matt Walker in the Grade B Mixed competition, Vinod Duraikan defending his Men’s O55s crown, and Jan Brynjolffssen having taken the plunge by entering both the Grade B and the Men’s O45s events.

Let’s take the players one by one, starting with Matt S. Round 1 paired Matt, who was in the 3/4 seed position in the draw, up with Swavesey’s Simon Hudson. This was an interesting match, but one Matt was always in control of it even when Simon produced some clean rallies. Points were traded at times. However those trades were in a roughly two-to-one ratio in Matt’s favour as his smooth movement undermined his opponents game, Simon becoming increasingly dispirited from midway through the second as he clearly started to wonder midway through the second how on earth he could hit a winner. Matt progressed with an 11-6, 11-4, 11-3 score.
Next up for Matt was a Quarter-Final against the younger of the Ramsay brothers from Peterborough, Oliver of that ilk. This was another high-class game, with both players moving around the court, lobbing the ball up to buy themselves time and trying to outmanoeuvre each other. Your correspondent missed the opening game so only has Matt’s comment post-match that he had a lead and let it slip away to go on. This was mentioned because the same thing happened in the second as Matt’s mid-game 2/3 point advantage was whittled away at the death. Indeed Oliver got to game-ball first but Matt saved this. There then followed a dramatic five minute spell as game-balls were traded, until eventually Oliver sneaked things 16-14. In amongst the drama Matt had begun to clutch at his side when fully stretched out. This prompted a change of tactics in the third as he went all out attack, looking to kill earlier in the piece. This worked wonderfully for a game, which was taken in a rush, but Oliver dug in to defend in the fourth and then the hamper became decisive with Matt exiting the event 9-11, 14-16, 11-3, 8-11.

Moving on to the other Matt, Matt Walker, who was playing in the Grade B event. The first round draw paired him with Martyn Goodger (Ely) in a reprise of County League matches of yore. The match presented a contrast in styles between Martyn, who belies his years (he was also in the O55s) with a fitness and hitting based game, whereas Matt is much more about the back corner, step in to kill one-two punch. These sort of matches can sometimes fly… but at others they can be bitty as one style gets on top of the other. This was one of the latter. Whose style was on top ebbed and flowed, but with such different approaches there was never a time when both players were playing well, which is what gives you a good match. However, critically for Matt, he had more of the times in the ascendancy, including the decisive fifth and that meant a 5-11, 11-3, 7-11, 11-8, 11-4 win.
That sent Matt on to the Quarter-Finals where he ran into top seed for the competition Connor Harmer (Comberton). Game one saw Matt trying to out-rally a hyper-fit 18-year-old, who has added consistency to his game over the last 18 months – the reason why he was the no.1 seed for this. This didn’t work as rallies just went on until Matt was ran out of them. A suggestion to try attack was implemented for the opening part of game two, but with only minor success as Connor claimed it. Instead Matt had more joy defending, drawing errors from his opponents racket and cutting out the ones from his own in the opening part of the second game. He may even have been 5-1 up at one point. However Connor reacted to this by cleaning up his own performance and roared back to claim it. Matt went out 5-11, 5-11, 8-11.

Next up we have Vinod Duraikan, who has won the Men’s O55s category (officially still holding the legacy name of the Men’s Vintage – like a fine wine) on a number of occasions previously. Basically ever since he was eligible. This competition only had four entrants, so was played on a Round Robin basis. Day One saw Vinod playing just a single game which he cruised through against Marcus Lattimer (host club Hunts County) 11-4, 11-3, 11-6, Vinod’s movement and calmness on the ball proving altogether too smooth for Marcus’ somewhat frenetic approach to the sport.
First up on the morning of day two for Vinod was a match against Martyn Goodger of Ely. This again was something of a mismatch in Vinod’s favour as Martyn’s approach, rather similar to Marcus’, was just not powerful or accurate enough to discomfit a player of Vinod’s class. Once again it was a relative breeze, Vinod always having something in hand as he won 11-7, 11-2, 11-7.
Both of these wins for Vinod were completely expected. Also expected was two pretty well equally straightforward wins for Newmarket’s Santiago Uribe Lewis over Martyn and Marcus – its almost like the organisers knew that Vinod vs Santi was the decisive match of the event as this was scheduled, despite being technically part of a round robin, midway through the finals on the glass back court. It was, effectively, another one as whichever player won would take the crown. And Vinod was the clear favourite for that, which he showed with two clean games to rattled into a comfortable lead. However Santi was not done, pushing hard at the third with Vinod briefly losing control of his game. A bit of a mind-clearance ahead of the fourth worked wonders though, Vinod deciding he had over-complicated in game three and simplifying, with consistent and sensible line-and-length and into the open space kills working wonders (… new information…) as Vinod won through 11-6, 11-4, 6-11, 11-3 to be County Champion again.

And finally, on to Jan. Making a rare appearance at the County Closed, his first in well over a decade, Jan opted to make up for lost time by entering two events, the Grade B and the Men’s O45s (Men’s Vets). The Vets was the first match up, indeed the first of the entire event as opponent Sean Broderick (Hunts County) needed to be done by lunchtime on the Saturday. However Sean is not one to rush his time on court, building rallies and running Jan about for the first game which he took comfortably. Like a dog chasing a ball Jan ran and ran in game two, and this worked… to an extent. The extent being claiming the game eventually, after an extended tie-break, but this was win the battle, lose the war stuff as he paid for that in the next two, losing 8-11, 17-15, 6-11, 3-11.
This meant Jan had a full match in his legs when he took on 3/4 seed Graham Broughton in Round 1 of the Grade B event. But it also meant Jan’s match instincts had been sharpened, and this was clear in the first four or five points as Graham tried to get up to speed and just watched Jan, already at match pace, killing the ball. Indeed for two games Jan’s play was right up there with the best he can produced, pushing his opponent back and then stretching to drop tightly. When going well, don’t overthink it. Jan overthought it. He got conservative in the third when playing aggressively had worked previously, Graham took over the front position on the court and the match changed. Jan was never able to implement Vinod’s advice, likely sound stuff, to try some power trickle boasts as he was now not on balance in the front corners. It all added up to an 11-6, 11-5, 3-11, 4-11, 6-11 defeat and the feeling of a winnable match that had got away.
That dropped Jan down to the B Plate, where he faced Alex Harvey in Round 1. An earlier watch of Alex’s Round 1 loss in the main draw had seen him play a game based hugely on drop shots. Jan went on to push his opponent deep and then move very high on the ‘t’. This worked perfectly, Alex dropping into corners that were easily within reach. This really was one-way traffic as it turned out Alex didn’t have another approach, with Jan rounding off his first day with an 11-1, 11-3, 11-3 stroll.
The B Plate continued on day two with a Semi-Final against Phillip Blake (Spalding). This match could hardly have been a greater contrast to the one with Alex as Phillip’s approach was power as opposed to touch. But short power, looking for the bashed kills from deep. The response was actually pretty similar, push your opponent deep and get up to the ‘T’. But instead of racing forward for the ball it was about staying light on ones feet to be able to react to and get under the fizzing orb, and then knocking it low over the tin for counter winners. This worked wonderfully in game one as Jan barely made an error. Some more tins showed up in the second and third but it was still a style set that worked pretty nicely as Jan won 11-3, 11-6, 11-7 to get to another final.
Another? Well, yes. You see that loss to Sean in the first match of the tournament had, by a quirk of the draw, meant Jan was the first finalist known of the entire event as he received a bye through the Vets Plate Semi. That meant he met Simon Hudson in the final. Simon is an extremely useful player by Jan’s standards, but the advantage Jan had was he was also evidently an extremely tired player. The skills were still there though, Simon playing enough tight shots to work through the first two games pretty comfortably. Jan then produced probably his best Squash of the entire weekend in the third, keeping good length and width and covering well in the front corners – one rolled counter-drop felt really good. This won Jan a game, but no more than that as he couldn’t maintain such a level for long and Simon’s greater class eventually told – Jan was beaten 6-11, 5-11, 11-8, 7-11.
But there was still one final game to be played – the B Grade Plate final. That paired Jan with… Martyn Goodger. Him again! In fact this pairing was players no. 2 and 3 in terms of greatest time on court over the weekend, Martyn playing 7 matches and in excess of 400 points whilst Jan had 6 and 350 to his name. This resulted in a first game that was… a bit stiff. This suited Jan as he could pump the ball deep, move forward and then drop against an opponent who was no longer moving. And moving is what Martyn’s game is based on. Again as with the Semi the first game was near mistake-free, and the second was not as a few points were given away. However Jan still won it and then went 5-2 up in the third. On his way to cruise to the title? No, because here he lost his way and somehow found himself in a battle. One game point was saved at 9-10, but a dodgy backhand volley drop handed Martyn a second chance, which he took when another loss shot from Jan gave the Ely player a chance to boast a winner. Was this game on? Jan made sure he wasn’t by going back to basics, aiming the ball at Martyn’s less reliable backhand rather than trying to wrong-foot on his much stronger forehand. Sometimes Squash is a simply game. This swiftly re-established dominance and rattled through the game to wrap up an 11-3, 11-7, 10-12, 11-4 win and claim a trophy for his weekend’s work.

Jan (left) and Vinod with their trophies

Melbourn Squash Club are very sad to hear of the recent passing of Kate Nankivell.

Kate was a significant presence in Sport in the Royston and Melbourn area. She made an enormous contribution to Melbourn Squash Club in particular, where she was a member since our founding in the mid-1980s. As well as playing to a high level Kate undertook various leadership roles: she was the club Coach for many years, teaching both Club Members and pupils at Melbourn Village College, she captained the Melbourn Ladies team, and also sat on the Squash Club Committee as Membership Secretary for over a decade.

Kate was less involved in the club in recent years, but she was back on court with her young granddaughter in 2023 and leaves a lasting legacy. She will be fondly remembered by many in the local area, including numerous Melbourn Squash players who she taught to play the game, some current committee members amongst them.

Her passing is sudden, a shock, and a terrible loss. The club wishes to express our condolences to Guy, Matt and the entire Nankivell family.

All membership come up for renewal at the end of this month (September). Members have a month's grace to renew, but at the end of October the club will need to suspend accounts and for GDPR reasons delete details of any member who has not renewed.

Please complete the attached membership form and email it to Jan, the Club Secretary, if you wish to renew. We need a new form each year even for renewing members as this is our record of your GDPR permission to us to store your details.

Following the substantial hike in our electricity unit price the AGM voted to rise both annual subscriptions and court fees. The AGM minutes will be shared in due course, with further details on this.

Attached are membership forms for 24-25, and the new subs and fees schedule. Copies will also be posted in the club.

Club Bank Details for online payment are available on request - please contact the Club Secretary for these.

Please contact the committee if you feel exceptional circumstances may apply to your membership application.

MVCSC Committee

Melbourn Village College Squash Club are shocked and saddened by the sudden closure of Melbourn Sports Centre after the liquidation of Be Active Melbourn, the management company responsible for its running. Our thoughts go out to the former staff of the Leisure Centre over this unexpected and bad news.

The Squash Club wishes to make clear that it remains open - whilst we were a close partner of Melbourn Sports Centre, we are an independent organisation from them: their closure is not out closure. We remain open to Club Members.

Despite this the Sport Centre closing has clear implications for Melbourn Squash Club. A key one is we have been forced to suspend casual court usage for the local community as we have no way of servicing such bookings without the Sports Centre. This is not a decision the club has taken lightly - we have done so because we have no other option. It's one we intend to reverse as soon as practically possible.

The Squash Club is in touch with the Melbourn Village College/The CAM Academy Trust as they explore a solution that will allow the Sports Centre to re-open to the local community as soon as possible. We thank the staff at the Village College for providing a method for members to have continued access the courts in the meantime. Club Members are advised to check their emails for details of how to get on to the site and into the Court building whilst the Sports Centre is shut.

MVCSC Committee

MELBOURN VILLAGE COLLEGE SQUASH CLUB
Notice of AGM

Dear Squash Club Members,

Notice is hearby given that Melbourn Village College Squash Club's Annual General Meeting will take place on:
Thursday 29th September,
8:00pm for an 8:15pm start
@ Green Man pub,
Dunsbridge Turnpike,
Shepreth, SG8 6RA

All members, full, off-peak, student, family, junior, etc. are eligible to attend and vote. Only votes from in the room, or submitted by proxy beforehand, shall be counted.

An agenda will be circulated before the day of the event.

MVCSC Committee

There was more squash action for Melbourn’s Women’s No.1 Kate Bradshaw at the weekend over at the Park in Nottingham, which was host to the iProSports British Masters National Championships 2022. This is one of the biggest events of the Masters Calendar and attracts some of the most talented over 35s players from all four home nations. With over 250 people at the event, it was a welcome return to something more like normality after two years of this event being cancelled due to Covid. Bradshaw was hoping both for some good performances and decent points towards a possible England o35/40 qualification slot.

2022 British Masters All Finalists. Picture: Brian Brock

Her first match was against a former Nationals finalist, Nathalie Townsend from Warwickshire. With their matches often going to 3-2, Bradshaw knew she had to be on her mettle, but didn’t expect to be quite so in the zone for the first match of the tournament. Whatever structure her warm up took clearly got her to the perfect place for this match which she romped through, annihilating Townsend 3-0, 11-3/11-2/11-1.
On paper, the next match should have been the easiest, as her opponent was playing down a couple of age groups. However, Mandy Akin is well-known on the circuit as a multiple Nationals champion in all her age categories. Against Akin, a tough player with immense mental and physical capabilities, Bradshaw struggled to find the same form from her earlier match and went down in the first game. It continued to be a battle throughout with Mandy having nothing to lose. However, Bradshaw finally managed to assert herself and up her level, to take a 3-2 victory.

Kate (left) and Hannah Wright-Davies ahead of their final. Picture: Brian Brock

This earnt her a place in the final against Hannah Wright-Davies, a former Wales International player and the top seed. Wright-Davies enjoys the physical side of matches and gave Bradshaw no quarter on court, holding and taking her space. This frustrated Bradshaw’s usual movement and created more pressure on each rally just to get to the ball. Although Bradshaw had beaten her opponent once before, it was not to be repeated here. Her opponent’s solid and consistent play was too much for Bradshaw on the day and she had to settle for runner up at the Nationals again. Bradshaw said: “Hannah was just too strong, both mentally and physically for me today. I didn’t do enough to upset her flow and couldn’t take control of the T often enough. Even when I did work the rallies and create opportunities, the finish wasn’t quite there for me – but that’s also a result of the pressure she creates for you on the court. The game scores were close, but I was disappointed not to challenge her more today. It wasn’t the result I’ve been working towards, but I was still happy to make it to another Nationals final and to see so many familiar and friendly faces here, especially after the last two years we’ve all had away from the circuit.”

Andy Murray (not that one...) of tournament sponsors iProSports presents Kate with the Runner-Up trophy. Picture: Brian Brock

The Nationals were the last event of the 2021-22 Masters Tour, with the selection of England squads for the Home Internationals in spring swiftly following based on the end-of-season rankings. Bradshaw’s final position of no.1 in the Women’s Over-40s meant she was a highly likely selection for the joint Women’s O35s/40s side (there is no standalone Women’s O40s in the Home Internationals), but not only has she been picked for the side, Bradshaw has also been asked to Captain it! This is a second chance for Kate to lead the England team as she was also asked to skipper the 2020 side, only for that year’s tournament to be cancelled due to the pandemic.
The Women’s O35s/40s section of the 2022 Home International Series will take place at Galway Lawn Tennis Club, Galway, Ireland on the weekend of 22-23 April. Bradshaw commented “I’m so pleased to be able to captain the team this season after the 2020 event was cancelled. All the players are always proud to represent their country, but I think this year will hold that much more meaning for everyone. It will be a real celebration of a return to playing a sport we love after so many restrictions over the last two years.”

As we come to the end of the year, a general update on what is happening at the club seems appropriate.

COVID

The first item is that, to date, England Squash have not advised of any need to change our operating. The committee will continue to closely monitor any developments, and the club will obviously abide by any changes in the law on Indoor Sport. However, for the moment, the club remains OPEN and all normal Squash activities are possible.

Christmas Opening

As we haven’t been informed to close, the club can remain open daily from 07:00-23:00. However over the holiday period out-of-hours access will often be required as there will be many times when the Sports Centre is shut. The Sports Centre’s planned opening schedule over the festive period is:

Christmas Eve – 07:00-13:00

Christmas Day - Tuesday 28th – CLOSED

Wednesday 29th - Friday 31st – 07:00-13:00

New Year's Day – CLOSED

January 2nd – 08:00-13:00

January 3rd – CLOSED

January 4th onwards – return to normal hours

Please be aware of these times, particularly on days when the Centre is only open to 13:00. If the Centre shuts whilst you are playing, your car is at high risk of getting locked into the site! We cannot do anything about this – so take note, and if there is any risk on timings park in front of the school and walk through.

For details on how to access the site when the Leisure Centre is shut, please contact the club by email melbournsquashclub@gmail.com

Melbourn Squash Club tops

The committee would like to offer the opportunity for all members to buy sports-style shirts with the Melbourn Squash Club logo. You may have seen some players wearing these around the club. If you haven't spotted them there, they would be similar to the shirts superbly modelled by Junior players Alistair and Louis at a recent event.

Despite the kids wearing green in the above link, the shirts would only be offered in two colours – blue with a white logo, or white with a blue logo.

Cost per shirt is to be confirmed but is expected to be around the £~10 range.

There will be a minimum order number we would need to reach. The first stage is therefore to see if there would be enough takers to make it viable. If you would like to be involved in such an order, please reply saying so and how many shirts you would probably buy.

N.B. a reply at this stage this is just an expression of interest and NOT a commitment to buy.

Junior coaching and Ladies Casual Squash

These have now finished for 2021.

Junior coaching is open to all and free to attend. It is currently taking place from 4:00-5:00pm on Wednesday evenings. The session re-commence for 2022 on Wednesday 5th January.

The Women and Girls Casual session has been a great success with a peak attendance of 13 people over on evening at the start of December and a mailing list of now close to 20 people. Given how well it has been going, we have decided to run weekly in 2022. These sessions will take place on Tuesday evenings from 7:00-9:00pm, using both courts. Each session costs £2 per evening per participant. We have also secured funding from Melbourn Parish Council to pay for a (female) coach to attend once every couple of months for Hints, Tips and Pointers sessions.

Both the Juniors and Female Casual sessions have their own mailing/contact lists. These are always open to new interest – if you know someone who would be interested in joining in in 2022 please contact Mark Oppen (markoppen@yahoo.co.uk) for Juniors or Nicole Rincon (njr2020@gmail.com) for female casual Squash.

Club Night and Internal Leagues

Club Night, which runs from 6:40-8:40pm on Sundays, won’t happen on Sunday 26th Dec, but will return for the New Year on Sunday 2nd Jan.

If you are interested in taking part in Club Night, please respond to this email with your phone number so you can be added to the WhatsApp group.

Regarding the Internal Box Leagues, League Secretary Colm has these two messages;

• Great to see the numbers in the leagues back to pre-covid levels and continuing to grow.
• Thanks for the feedback on how the league is operating and we will continue to refine it to encourage more games to be played.

Men’s Handicap Tournament proposal

The committee has made especial recent efforts to improve our offerings for Juniors and Female players. So now it is the Men’s turn – we want to try and offer something additional to increase the participation levels and club engagement of our male players.

Our first idea is a single day timed handicap tournament. The concept would be for matches of 15 minutes of continuous play (timed by a stopwatch), and simply to accumulate points. No games, just a running total. The player with the higher score at the end wins and advances.

To re-emphasise the event would be handicapped. That means the weaker player begins with a head start. 7-0 up, 10-0 up, that sort of thing. The bigger the expected disparity in levels, the larger that head start would be (30-0 to being with..??). If the handicapping is right then anybody, whatever their level of Squash, should be in contention to win the event.

If we got 16 players signed up we would run Cup and Plate competitions; that would mean at least 30 minutes of Squash for everyone across the day, rising to 1 hour for players reaching finals.

This was vaguely planned for January but given the developing situation we are going to kick the can down the road by a few months. So the suggested date is now Good Friday, 15th April. Hopefully things will have improved again by then and gathering a group of people together seems reasonable again.

As well as connecting with new opponents, another potential incentive to be involved stems from Cambs Squash having a fund for encouraging adult male participation in the sport; the committee have discussed this idea with them to see if we can get a chunk of that to support our proposed tournament. If this is available to us (please note that is TBC, the Cambs county committee are currently considering our suggestion) there may be prizes on offer…

Feel free to offer feedback on this proposal. We are all ears when it comes to ideas for additional playing opportunities for our male members as well as our female and junior ones.

Melbourn Squash Club Committee

… or in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity

[thanks for that one Albert]

Melbourn Squash Club recently began running Casual sessions for Women and Girls. These are on Tuesday evenings, running from 7:00-9:00pm on a fortnightly basis – between now and Christmas there are sessions on 30th November and 14th December, recommencing in the New Year on 11th January.

The Women’s Casual sessions are open to female players of any age or ability, already existing members and non-members alike. The cost is £2 per person per evening. The club provides balls and has racquets available to borrow – all anyone needs to bring with them to get on court and play is some suitable clothes for exercising and a pair of trainers with a non-marking sole.

The sessions have grown nicely since they started in October - we now have a mailing list with ~15 names on it, and attendances have ranging in the 5-10 bracket so far. Given the success to date, the Women’s Casual Sessions will be an ongoing offering from the club.

Session organiser Nicole Rincon commented "It’s a nice feeling that we’ve brought people back to the game who haven’t played for several years.  All saying how much they’ve enjoyed playing again."

Why have Women’s Casual Squash?

So, why a Womens and Girls Casual session, then? How did we come to be here?

Well, the 15 months of on-and-off lockdown got the committee at Melbourn thinking. Yeah, I know, dangerous. It was obvious that our membership numbers were going to drop precipitously, and it was going to take specific efforts to rebuild them again to get the club back on an even footing. That was a general point, but were there any other trends that predated worldwide events that we really should have been addressing anyway?

The answer was obvious: yes, two. One, the number of Juniors playing in the club, was something we were already attempting to rectify with the Junior coaching, both in conjunction with the Village College and standalone club sessions, which we launched in late 2019 (no awards for timing there). But there was another demographic that our numbers said we had been failing to engage well with recently: female players.

Female playing numbers on our courts, both taking up membership or those visiting on an irregular non-member basis, had been in decline for many years. The sad demise of our Women’s team attests to that. They were good, County Champions in 2017 no less, but whilst the squad definitely had lots of quality, it lacked depth – only 6 members strong. When family reasons saw the skipper stepped down a season later and two of the other players withdraw from team play, there simply weren’t the numbers to carry on as the conveyor belt of new blood to take their places… well, there wasn’t one!

Not our issue alone, of course. This appears to be a national phenomenon. And one other people have been trying to address already. One such initiative was just around the corner, locally-based professional player (top 100 these days) and coach Ali Loke running open casual sessions for Women and Girls at Swavesey Squash Club.

Ali (grey top, fifth from left) with one of her female-only groups

This sounded like a plan. So we ran a pilot, getting Ali along to our club for an evening back in September. When this drew 7 people along, many of whom hadn’t played Squash in years, it was clear that the appetite was still there in the Melbourn area to get on court… if the right sort of encouraging, supportive environment could be provided.

And therefore the Melbourn’s Women’s Casual Sessions were launched.

What is next?

So that is where we are today. But what next for Female Casual Squash at Melbourn? Well session organiser Nicole is currently seeking feedback from the mailing list over whether to continue with fortnightly sessions in the new year or run weekly instead.

The Club are also delighted to announce that we have secured a generous grant from the Melbourn Parish Council Community Fund that will allow us to bring a professional coach in on a bi-monthly basis to run Tips, Hints and Advice sessions. We will look to continue to develop on what has been achieved so far, to rebuild the base of Women’s Squash in Melbourn and the surrounding area.

For further information on the Women’s casual session, or to join our mailing list please contact Nicole Rincon on 07762 908461, njr2020@gmail.com or by Facebook.
For information on this and other activities at Melbourn Squash Club please contact Club Secretary Jan Brynjolffssen – 07730 406688 or janik17@hotmail.com.