Despite all the societal issues with COVID, Northern Squash club were delighted to be able to run their junior open recently, for the first time in three years.
Headline sponsors Dunlop and QS Lawson & Thompson were back to ensure that all entrants were able to take away an event t shirt and the finalists had prizes to compete for in addition to the coveted trophies.
With 56 entrants we were able to fit all the matches into one day, so the event ran on Saturday May 7th... nearly 100 matches were played across 8 categories with some juniors having 4 matches in a day.
Entrants into England Squash sanctioned tournaments have been hit by COVID, so we were happy with 56 entrants and what was really pleasing is that half of them were girls!
As always there was a lot of representation by Northern in the finals of all the categories :
U11 Girls - Alice Pearsall ( Northern ) beat Millie Bond ( Northern ) U11 Boys - James Southern ( Tynemouth ) beat Will Brocklehurst ( Northern ) U13 Girls - Sophie Johnson ( Jesmond ) beat Rebecca Little ( Jesmond ) U13 Boys - Duncan Rutherford ( Northern ) beat Charlie Armstrong ( Northern ) U15 Girls - Kate Naisbitt ( Northern ) beat Katherine Palmer ( Northern ) U15 Boys - Malachi Tindale ( Darlington ) beat Matthew Ansell ( Northern ) U17 Girls - Sian Tuck ( Jesmond ) beat Sarah Jane Mothersole ( Northern ) U19 Girls - Lucy Cox ( Durham Uni ) beat Katie Barker ( Northern )
The junior committee work tremendously hard to make sure the tournament runs smoothly and a special thanks go to Kevan Mahoney ( tech stuff ), Kieran Mahoney, Dave North, Derek Collins and Joel Birch-Machin ( Refereeing ) and Jane Shipsey ( T shirt admin ).
We're already planning for next year's event, when hopefully we'll be able to re introduce our famous event cake stall!
