New Guidelines for the Senior Men’s and Women’s Teams were published today. Please check out the ranking section here

Fitzwilliam’s premier men and women’s teams travelled to Prague at the weekend (5 – 9 September) to compete in the European Squash Club Championships.

The ladies entered the competition as #3 seeds, and the team consisting of Aisling Blake, Laura Mylotte, Rosie Barry and Vicky Menzies won their group stage to set up a quarter-final tie against Squashclub Strahov from the Czech Republic. With great performances from all, the team won 3/0 and went through to the semi-finals against a strong Pontefract team including Orla Noom (#58 world ranking) and Vanessa Atkinson (previous world #1 and world champion). Despite Laura coming close to beating Vanessa, Fitzwilliam lost 2-1. The team finished in 3rd place after beating Espoo of Finland in the 3rd/4th playoff on Saturday. Pontefract went on to beat Mullhouse (France) in the women’s final, taking their 5th European title.

The men’s team entered the competition seeded #10 and had a strong team consisting of Derek Ryan, Rory Byrne, Nigel Peyton, Niall Rooney, Dara O’Flynn and Kevin Moore. In the group stage, they had a tough draw against Aberdeen (seeded #2) , Nottingham and Hafrsfjord (Norway). Following the group stage, they were placed into the playoffs for 9 – 16th place, where they beat Liechtenstein comfortably and finished in 12th place despite injuries to Niall and Dara.

Elsewhere in the men’s draw, there were some epic matches with James Wilstropp (world #2, representing Mullhouse) beat Nick Matthews (world #1, representing Worms, Germany) in almost 2 hours in the semi finals. Worms went on to the final against Buldoci Praha (Czech), where Greg Gaultier (world #3) beat Matthews 3-1. Worms won the final 3-1 for their first European title.

Vicky Menzies FLTC

Call for entries

Entries are invited to play in the Connacht Junior Open 2012  this coming September.

• This competition will take place in  29 – 30 September 2012 at Galway Lawn Tennis Club. Enter online here
• For more information for your club or to enter please visit Connacht Squash

World Squash’s bid to secure a place in the Olympic Games is making strong progress. We have completed our brochure, an exhaustive questionnaire, are producing a video, networking with IOC Members, attending conventions and other meetings and preparing for the IOC event inspection later this year.

There are also two key events coming up, our presentations to the IOC Programme Commission and Executive Board. At each, our representatives make the case for squash and answer questions; we will show the video too.

I am giving you this background as we are going to make a second film for the presentations (and used generally at events, on YouTube etc) and I would be really grateful for your help.

It will be a feature film that will visually show that we are a genuinely worldwide sport. We say that squash is played in 185 countries and want to emphasise this in a short film.

We plan to do this by arranging for people, from all over the world, to film themselves and send it to us so that we can make a fast-moving compilation. Deliberately not slickly professional, more YouTube.

In outline, we start with a message saying that squash is played everywhere, with a stream of people simply saying the name of their country. That’s all, just the name. 

Hopefully you can arrange for some videos from your country. They should be filmed on a smartphone or video camera holding a squash racket. Any or all of the following options would be ideal:

• One player (young or old) saying your country name
• A whole group of players (adult or children) saying your country name
• There could be a single person or more in the background.  

It could be filmed:

• In a squash environment 
• In front of an iconic location in your country 
• In a town, in the country, mountain or desert (basically a feature of your country)

Please try one or more of these examples, or anything else from your country you think would work. It is up to the individuals how they set their films up, the background can be as they wish, we just need to have a racket (held across the chest) and the announcement of the name of the country.  Do use the local name of your country in your own language.  Once the people have said the country name please ask them to continue to look down the lens of the camera and smile for a few seconds as they would for a still photograph. That’s all!

These few seconds of film should be uploaded to the FTP site below – it’s really easy.  This is the link and instructions:

Click on:http://fileshare.wilderfilms.co.uk/Login

username: squash    password: olympics and Click:  Choose Film.

This will allow you to select your video file from your computer.  Once selected, Click:  Begin Upload

That’s it. Easy!

As we need to prepare the film soon, we need them by 28 September please.

Thanks in advance for your help. You will be playing an important part in the bid – and feature in it!

Regards

Andrew Shelley

Chief Executive

Call for entries

Entries are invited to play in the Munster Open 2012  this coming September.

• This competition will take place in Cork over the weekend of October 5-7 and you can enter now.
• The event is OPEN TO THE PUBLIC, so come & see some of Ireland’s top squash players in action all support welcome.
• For more information for your club or to enter please visit Munster Squash

Thank you to everyone who entered our competition and took the time to complete the survey – we had a very good response and it is very encouraging to get the feedback and ideas from across Ireland.

The survey threw up some interesting information and the overall results are shown in the charts below. The winner of the Squash Racket is Kevin Davey from Sligo – congratulations may it bring you much success in your matches!

The survey highlights a number of things that you as Irish Squash players would like to see developed – and we are working hard to try and achieve some of those goals. A common theme from your feedback included the following:

• Need to encourage more juniors to play the sport
  
• Need to encourage more ladies to play the sport
  
• Desire to see Squash as an Olympic Sport and to be able to watch it on TV
  
• Desire for more coaching sessions for juniors
  
• Desire to reopen some closed courts around Ireland
  
• Better results in the European Championships
  
• More promotion and PR for Squash in Ireland
  

Lots to do and much progress is being made in most of these areas. Thank you to those who said you would help – and of course all of you who do already – we will be calling on your help to try and achieve these goals over the next few years.

Below is a summary of the results of the survey – a lot of Squash addicts out there!

How many times a week do you usually play squash?

Have you ever suffered an injury as a result of playing squash

Have you introduced any new players to the game of squash?

Have you ever watched or attended national competitions

Do you treat your coaching sessions like a business?

How many of the players at your club know about the coaching services you offer? How easy is it for them to book your coaching sessions? Where can they find out more about your coaching programmes, or see the testimonials from your satisfied customers?

Most coaches provide their services as a full or part-time business. Growing your coaching business can be a difficult and daunting task. Improving your visibility, streamlining your booking processes and showcasing your services and testimonials can all help to generate interest and new business. Whilst traditional methods (such as club noticeboards) still play a part, many coaches are exploring new ways to promote and run their business using technology.

We recommend that as a coach you take some time to review the services offered by the Neil Lovatt and his online ClubManager software. This is a very cost effective way for a club to manage its court booking and coaching services.

Coaching Software Solutions

ClubManager.ie provides online services to squash clubs and coaches. Each affiliated coach has their own web page which is used to describe their services and help convert interest to business. The page is publicly visible and should perform in google search results. However, the most important aspect is the association between the coach page and a club, since this provides access to a player base of potential customers. Players log in regularly to use the club services and have many opportunities to visit your page, learn about your coaching services and request individual and group sessions.

Next Steps

Services are offered as part of a commercial arrangement between the coach and ClubManager.ie, and subject to approval of the club. The first 4 months are free with no obligation to proceed. Any coach at a club using ClubManager.ie court booking systems, leagues or ladders is eligible to sign up. Coaches at other clubs are invited to setup and run a box league or ladder at their club using the ClubManager.ie system. Contact [email protected] for further details.

Call for entries

Entries are invited to play in the first National Curragh Club Open 2012 to be held in the Curragh Squash facilities this coming September.

• The tournament runs from Fri 21st September, Sat 22nd September & Sun 23rd September
• This is the First National Tournament to  be held in Curragh Squash Club and we are very excited to be hosting the event.
• The event is OPEN TO THE PUBLIC, so come & see some of Ireland’s top squash players in action all support welcome.
• For more information for your club or to enter please contact Neil Brannigan 086 3001077

Meet the Irish Squash 2012 Ladies Team and their Coach proudly representing Ireland throughout Europe.