You might remember my article around a year ago that covered my experience at a tournament named 'Squash Junkies' held in a town called Hoofddorp in the Netherlands.
You might also remember that I had the absolute time of my life at the event and vowed to attend it in 2024.
You'll be thrilled to hear that I did attend the 2024 Squash Junkies, and, yet again, it absolutely did not disappoint.
Despite my persistent ankle injury and shocking fitness, this was still one of the best squash tournament experiences of my life (again), so, of course, I have to write up a tournament recap on the event!
In this blog post, I'll delve into the structure of the tournament, my own experience, how matches went, and more...
The photo above really does give you a great idea of the scale of this particular tournament. Jason Morris is the host and organiser of the event and, this most recent edition of Squash Junkies is the 27th!
Running such an event for 27 years (give or take) is a phenomenal achievement, and, to grow it into what it is today, is even more incredible, so hats off to Jason for doing such a great job organising and managing the event from start to finish.
Just to give you an idea of how popular this tournament has become, all 32 team slots were completely full by the start of January, despite the tournament being held in August!
I'm not certain how many players actually participated in the event, however, every team has six players and there were 32 teams, which means at least 192 players were there, but, many teams had subs and extra players who tagged alone, so it must have been in the 200s.
So yes, it's an incredibly successful event!
To give you an idea of the format, as I mentioned every team has six players, teams had to have at least two females, and it started off in a group stage and then went into a knockout.
With regard to the standard, Squash Junkies really caters to everyone (which is another great thing about the event).
There are literally players from beginner level all the way up to the best in the world (and coming from all over the world too).
And, when I say best in the world, I mean best in the world.
The first thing me and my team saw when we arrived at the club was current men's World No.2 Paul Coll (from New Zealand) and women's World No.4 Nele Gilis (from Belgium).
If you follow professional squash, you'll know that these two are the best of the best right now. They come most years and win most years too, however, they're still challenged every single time too.
Coll was also hitting with another world-class player, Juan Camilo Vargas from Colombia, who is currently World No.41.
I grabbed a coffee and shot a quick video of them below and I must say, sitting watching those guys warm up with the Olympics on the TV was probably one of the most enjoyable coffees of my life.
Now, a bit more about the event itself, it's a three-day tournament and there's a lot of cool stuff included in the entry fee.
The actual event starts on the Thursday night and most players arrive at some point on Thursday during the day (although I know a few teams also get there on Wednesday and maybe even earlier). No matches are played on the first night, but, many teams use it as a day to warm up their squash.
The tournament properly kicks off when the bell for the free bar rings on Thursday evening at the squash club. This is when players mingle, get to know each other, and catch up with friends they perhaps haven't seen since last year's event.
Regarding the actual club, it's named the 'Meersquash & Activity' Club (which I think mean's 'More Squash' in English). It has a perfect layout for this type of social squash tournament.
It's open plan with a bar and seating area in the middle and (I believe) 9 glass-back squash courts surrounding it.
Of course, the club also has outdoor areas and a car park.
In fact, many teams opt to camp in the car park (my team included). Of course, this isn't necessarily the most comfortable option, however, it saves a lot of money, the weather is usually good, and, there are so many other teams camping that the vibe is always really great around the car park area too.
The photo below is of three of our six team members after we'd just put up our tents...
As we move onto day two (Friday), matches begin first thing in the morning with many teams already a little hungover from the free bar the night before.
Every team had at least two or three matches throughout the Friday, however, they are played in best-of-three format so it doesn't get too taxing on the body.
I'll talk a bit more about our matches shortly, but for now, I just want to go through the tournament's itinerary...
So, after our matches (and a few drinks) throughout Friday daytime, Jason had booked a bunch of coaches to take us to a lovely BBQ restaurant by the beach.
The weather was beautiful and sunny and the restaurant was a BBQ-style buffet that backed right onto the beachfront. The food was lovely and it was great to be able to wander out onto the beach while the sun was setting too.
The coaches then took everyone into Amsterdam city centre to a bar/club called Smokeys. Jason had a huge bag of tokens for drinks and handed one out to everybody.
One slight downside is that, after you've used your token, Amsterdam is quite an expensive city, so, the cost of drinks can add up very quickly. My team went for a little wander to find a cheaper bar and we stayed there for a while before heading back to Smokeys where the rest of the Junkies players were partying.
So yep, Friday was yet another great night!
Now onto the Saturday and the hangovers combined with the lack of sleep started to take its toll on most players, however, we powered through!
We had a few more matches and then it was time for the fancy dress night to begin at the squash club...
Every year, there's a different theme. Last year, the theme was sports and we went as referees (since our team was already wearing black and white Newcastle United football tops).
This year, the theme was the 'Roaring 20s'...
After a bit of discussion within our team, we assumed all the guys at the tournament would be dressed in suits and flat caps and the ladies would be wearing flapper dresses, so, we decided to switch things up a bit.
Instead, the guys on our team wore flapper dresses and the girls wore suits, mustaches, caps, and pipes!
I'll leave you to decide whether or not we managed to pull it off...
From left to right, it's Chris Wiggins in the white dress, Emma Turnbull, Andy Black, Tegan Younger, and me!
Me, Chris, and Andy got plenty of compliments on our dresses which was certainly a pleasant experience!
Anyway, on that final Saturday night, Jason arranged for food to be put on in the outside bit. Last year we had a BBQ, however, since we'd already had a BBQ on the second night, the food on the third night was Indonesian.
It was absolutely amazing.
I wasn't even sure about the names of the dishes I was eating, all I knew was that I absolutely loved them!
As the night peddled on, a DJ popped up in the club and everyone danced until the early hours.
Then, everyone has one final match on Sunday morning. The standard of squash has obviously dropped somewhat since day one, however, it's still a lot of fun to see everyone again and catch up on the night prior.
And that's that!
So, how did my team do?
Well, not great...
As you might have noticed in the picture above, we only have five players and not six. Unfortunately, Michael Mattimore had to back out of the event at the very last moment, leaving our team without a number 1.
So, we had Chris at 1, me at 2, Andy at 3, Emma at 4, and Tegan at 5.
However, due to my ongoing ankle injury, I really didn't want to play at 2 unless I absolutely had to. Luckily, there are so many keen squash addicts at Squash Junkies that it's never too hard to find a player to step in.
For our first few matches, we had a very helpful gentleman named Ryan Spencer step in at number 2 and hold the fort for us!
We won our first match, won our second, but unfortunately, lost our third (meaning that we didn't win our group).
Something even worse was that my ankle had swelled up again and was causing me a lot of pain. Thankfully, we found another saviour to step in for me and play my matches (for which I was incredibly grateful).
So, unfortunately, we didn't win the event, but, we all put a good shift in!
All in all, a superb Squash Junkies experience yet again and I hope I'm able to go back again next year. Ideally, my ankle will be fine by then too, I have my fingers and toes crossed.
To tie things up, I'll leave you with one more photo. For context, we all promised to play in our dresses on the final day, so I did step in and play my match on Sunday morning in my pretty black dress and ripped fishnet stockings.
It certainly didn't make lunging any easier...
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