Annual General Meeting 2026 – Tuesday 30th June, 8pm @ The Northumberland Club.
We encourage a representative of each club to attend and remind you that all are welcome at the meeting. There will be a £5 per team discount towards the 2026/27 league fees for all clubs that send a representative to the AGM.
Please see the agenda below:
All agenda items must be submitted to Dave North via the form below by Saturday 27th June.
Anyone who would like to stand for election to the committee will need to make this known on the night.
All items for discussion will be shown below for attendees to discuss in advance of the AGM.
Proposal for discussion at AGM (submitted by Richard Vitty):
Item for Discussion
To allow players from the Northern Junior team to also play for the Northern Men’s teams.
This would only allow them to play for teams in a higher division than the one that the junior team is in and would act as a way of transitioning them into playing for men’s teams in a practical way.
Proposal for discussion at AGM (submitted by Keith Linsley):
Item for Discussion
That league matches are played with single yellow dot balls, except the leagues where matches are played to 11. ie the top 2 leagues
We understand ES state the following
Single Yellow Dot (Competition Ball): Best for regular club players, improvers, or when playing in cooler court conditions. It provides roughly 10% more bounce than the double dot.
PSA states
Double yellow dot is most suitable for professionals, tournament and good club players as it requires consistent hard-hitting play to maintain the correct temperature for optimal performance.
We believe players, not at the highest standard, would benefit from longer rallies where they will be able to get the ball at a more consistently raised temperature, so enjoying a better balanced game
Also potentially less prone to injuries through having to hit the ball too hard (ie to keep a double dot warm) and sudden reaches for a cold double dot
Proposals for discussion at AGM (submitted by Tom Beresford):
Item for Discussion
Proposal 1 – Multiple teams from the same club in the same division should be split on merit providing greater opportunity for all clubs across the region
Proposal 2 – the Northumbria Cup has a £250 prize – sponsorship opportunity
Proposal 3 – Make presentation evening for end of season competitions focal point of season with entertainment and opportunity to raise money.
Purpose of proposals
Drive competition, standards and participation in the local leagues
Principals
League ambition should be to promote squash across all clubs to grow the game with a good geographical spread of opportunity across the county.
Creating a competitive top end of the Northumbria leagues has a knock-on effect throughout local clubs creating opportunities for development and growth. Success starts at the top of the county; smaller clubs strive to be in the top league, having top players in clubs raises the overall level, members of all clubs enjoy watching competitive high-level squash. The success of the premier league has a positive trickle-down impact across the entire leagues benefiting all clubs.
Increased participation in leagues through improved engagement and events bringing the community together.
Risk
Growth of Matchpoint (which is a fantastic product and a real asset to growing the game) unintentionally creating competition with Northumbria Leagues and could potentially reduce participation. This is low risk as the two work in partnership but important Northumbria Squash learns from Matchpoint in developing our product and promoting events.
Larger clubs have a monopoly over the top end of the leagues, over last 3 years the number of teams from Nmbland, Northern and Tynemouth has grown from roughly 30% to near 50%.
26/27 9/19* based on promotion relegation, one relegated from Div 1 and one promoted from Div 2
25/26 9/19
24/25 7/19
23/24 6/19
Impact here is the best players move to one of these clubs, or even between bigger clubs as seen this last season. As a result, the opportunity for smaller clubs such as Chester-Le-Street, Newbiggin, Boldon, Eldon, Primrose, Sunderland, Westoe, Hexham etc to compete will shrink.
Furthermore players coming through the local clubs will hit a ceiling within their clubs and to achieve competitive squash will need to move to one of the larger clubs. The unintended knock on affect here is the overall standard within the small clubs will suffer, based on the premise general improvement occurs through a hierarchal approach to competition.
Proposal Detail
Proposal 1 – Each team is required split their order based on merit alone and not create equal standard teams. The Uni should be an exception to this rule based on the transient nature of their player base, with controls in place for the league secretary to make the final call.
The approach to splitting teams benefits the top players in the county by creating a competitive environment whilst staying within their home club(s), important to point out due to locality, size and setup of clubs, a number of players rotate between these clubs.
The negative impact to the smaller clubs is highlighted above with lack of opportunity to compete, risk of losing emerging talent from local club and lowering of standards within clubs.
I would stress it is my opinion the league should be prioritising growth of all clubs and providing a meritocratic system in which clubs can operate. This model would mean top players look to play for Chester, Newbiggin, Sunderland etc, this was the model 10 years ago when the premier league was made up of 8 different teams. An example of this working successfully is at Westoe who won the Northumbria Cup in 2018/19 with Paul Lord as No1 and 2022/23 with Liam Gutcher playing No1. It is up to players who they play for and up to clubs to convince top players to play for them, but it is the responsibility of the league to drive competition and enable opportunity for clubs above players.
The challenge is how to arbitrate what is the “best” team in each club. Whilst ultimately teams should be competing within the spirit of the rules, to ensure fairness the split of teams can either be driven by squash levels or left to the discretion of the league secretary.
Proposal 2 – The Northumbria Cup should have a prize of £250 – this ties to the point above around competition and the proposal below about end of season presentation night. There is a stark comparison between the strength of this event pre and post Covid, in 2017,18 and 19 the finals were tightly contested 3-2 results with the best players available on both teams, at the most two players across both teams were missing. Since Covid a minimum of two players have been missing from each final with the last results being 5-0, 5-0 and this year Northern put out a weakened side and still won 4-1 (which speaks to the proposal above about competition).
The presentation this year lacked attendance from five clubs to collect awards. Making the final the focal point of the year with a prize, encourages the top players to play and creates an event spectators want to attend improving the overall involvement from clubs across the leagues.
To fund this, create a sponsorship opportunity, so rather than the Northumbria Cup it becomes the X cup (not sure Elon wants to sponsor us but you get the jist), you won’t struggle to get £250 of funding.
Proposal 3 – Make the end of season presentation a focal point of the year. Northumbria has two key opportunities to bring in foot fall and explore raising money, the county competition is one and the end of season presentation should be one, the proposal above will increase attendance. But further to this there should be a formal presentation celebrating the success of the season, including entertainment. The event could be ticketed and their should be some form of auction, raffle etc to raise money for the leagues. Make a night of it and the squash community will respond in kind as was the case pre Covid.
Proposals for discussion at AGM (submitted by David Breakey):
Proposal 1:
Rule 3.7 currently provides that Men’s League Premier Division fixtures will normally be played on Thursdays. We propose that this rule is amended so that Premier Division teams are treated consistently with all other divisions and are not required to have Thursday as their normal match night.
There does not appear to be any clear rationale for Premier Division teams being subject to a different match-night requirement from teams in other divisions. In practice, requiring Premier Division fixtures to be normally played on a Thursday can be restrictive for clubs and players, particularly where players have work, family or other regular commitments on Thursday evenings. This may make it harder for clubs to field their strongest available teams and may discourage players from committing to Premier Division squash.
We therefore propose that Rule 3.7 is deleted, or alternatively amended to make clear that Premier Division fixtures may be scheduled on any regular club match night in the same way as fixtures in other divisions.
Proposal 2:
Rules 4.9 and 4.10 currently allow clubs with multiple teams in the top division of the Winter League to nominate those teams so that they are of broadly equal strength, based on the club ranking order. We propose that this option is extended so that clubs may nominate equal-strength teams in any Winter League division where they have two or more teams in the same division, subject to the same safeguards around nomination order and player eligibility.
The ability to split teams of broadly equal strength has helped to create a much more competitive Premier Division. It allows players at a similar standard to play more meaningful matches, rather than concentrating the strongest players in one team and leaving other teams either too strong or too weak for the division. This improves the quality of matches for both the club concerned and its opponents.
Extending the rule would give more clubs the option of creating balanced teams, offering players more competitive spots and helping to avoid situations where players regularly have matches that are either too one-sided or below their level.
This change would support participation by allowing clubs to place players in teams that better reflect their playing standard, while retaining appropriate controls through the existing nomination rules and League Secretary oversight. We therefore propose that Rules 4.9 and 4.10 are amended, or supplemented by a new rule, to permit equal-strength teams in any Winter League division where a club has multiple teams in that division.