Home of the famous Yellow Dot Ball and located in a town with the most beautiful beaches you’ll ever see, the exceptionally excellent Esperance Squash Club is our August Club of the Month!
Esperance Squash Club is located on the corner of Harbour Road and Black Street, Esperance, which is 700km southeast of Perth in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia. This equates to a 7.5 hour drive or 80 minute plane ride from the state’s capital.
The club was established in 1967 and celebrates their uniqueness in being one of the biggest in WA with over 100 members and eight courts accessible to members 24 hours a day! Court hire is also possibly the cheapest in WA and an absolute steal at $6 per hour.
“Our club is solely owned and run by its members. We rely on our members for busy bees, to run competitions and for the normal day to day operations of the courts. Our members always rally together when needed.”
What does a week in the life look like for Esperance Squash Club? The club runs a Summer and Winter pennant competition with women playing on Tuesday nights, and men on Wednesdays. Their school term junior program also runs on Thursday afternoons. Preliminary and grand final evenings are a combined mens and womens event. Finals night is a large social event open to the public and is usually held on a Friday or Saturday night at the end of each season. They provide free food (catered for by their members) and cheap dinks from their licensed bar. Friday nights and Sunday afternoons are often very busy with people coming down for a social hit.
“Occasionally in the off-season, we run a mixed doubles competition. Our last doubles competition saw players dress up for the finals.”
“Every year on the March long weekend we hold the Esperance Open. Last year we had around 130 competitors. We provide a fantastic, well catered for weekend for all competitors and spectators alike. The club members work tirelessly to provide food and free flowing drinks over the whole weekend, volunteering their time behind the bar and in the kitchen.
Every two years we organise the Yellow Dot Ball. This ball has been running for over 30 years. A committee is formed to organise this event. It requires a lot of tireless work. This is one of the most popular events in Esperance. Tickets sell out every year and it’s one of our biggest fundraisers for the club.”
Apart from all the squash fun that happens throughout the week, Esperance Squash Club are great at connecting with their local community!
“During COVID, our member numbers dropped quite significantly. To reboot, we held an open day in January 2023 for everyone that wanted to attend. At the open day we had well over 80 people turn up. We had courts and racquets available for those who wanted to try squash, live music, sausage sizzle, bar and an exhibition match played by two of our top players. It was a well-received afternoon that promoted squash to a wide variety of people and brought back a lot of members to the game.”
They hire their facility out to businesses and the general public as a venue for events which provides an addition income stream, further strengthened through bar sales. School groups also hire the facility and use squash as part of their physical education curriculum. The Club owns an inflatable squash court that is hired out for community events to raise awareness for the sport, and for kids and adults alike to come and have some fun and try a new sport!
We asked who the MVPs at the club are, to which they responded, “we have an amazing committee who work tirelessly to keep the club running so well. But our REAL MVPs would have to be our 16 life members. We vote on life members every couple of years. The criteria for which, to start with, is membership for at least 15 years. On top of this they have to have contributed to the club in other ways such as as Club President, Secretary, Treasurer, Pennants captain, committee member tournament organiser, participate in busy bees, etc. The fact we have so many life members, is testament to our amazing club which beams with committed, long standing, members”.
Back Row: Jane McCrea, Raewyn Fisher, Carmel Scott, Irene Morocz, Kevin Hall, Jeff Buckman, Mike Lalor
Front Row: Deb Searle, Neville Clifton, Bill Reed and David Hall
Lastly, the club would like to give a shout out to all of their wonderful sponsors:
Thanks for chatting with us guys, and in particular Club Secretary Christine Torelli for getting a lot of this together. 😍
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