Club Refurbishment Opening Night

We recently refurbished our squash section and brought it up to a fabulous new standard and celebrated the re-opening in style with an exhibition match and another great Northern Squash event.

The history of the refurbishment

The idea for this refurbishment came when we received a letter in June 2009 from England Squash and Racketball asking clubs to put in a bid for capital funding to improve their clubs facilities.

Richard Vitty had the first idea of putting railings on courts 2-3-4 so the juniors could see into the court without standing on chairs and the rest of the ideas for the refurbishment grew from there.

In August 2009 we sent a bid to England Squash and Racketball for capital funding. The project cost was estimated at £103,000. This was to be a matched funded bid i.e. 50% from England Squash and Racketball and 50% from Northern FC and in January 2010 we received notice that the bid had been accepted.

We had to change out plans when in February 2010 received notice that the funding was being reduced. So we sent a revised bid to England Squash and Racketball and in March we received notification that we would be awarded £25,000 to be matched by Northern FC but it could be 2011 before funds would be available.

Then in April 2011 we were warned that funding could be cut by 40% after the Governments spending review. By May we received confirmation that the funding would be cut to £20,000.

Our Finance Committee agreed to recommend to the Executive Committee to fund the extra £5,000 and the Executive Committee agreed. From the start of this project we have had nothing but support from the Finance Committee and the Executive Committee of Northern Football Club.

On Monday 13th June 2011 we started the renovations and closed the squash section for 4 weeks. Derek Collins and Richard Vitty formed a group of highly motivated members who put in many hours of unpaid work to do the jobs that the club needed form sanding and varnishing the seating and stairs, to painting the out of court and spectator areas and corridors and many other jobs that put the finishing touches to the refurbishment. Then on Monday 11th July we reopened the fabulous new squash section.