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Society Focus: Introducing the Squash Club

Ollie Norton wearing a blue Cambridge University squash club sweatshirt standing in a squash court.
Squash Club Captain

Ollie

I’m Ollie Norton! I study Theology, Religion and Philosophy of Religion and am also the Captain of the Trinity Hall Squash Club. 

I first started playing squash in an after-school club when I was about 12 or 13 and I was pretty hooked from then on. Soon, I started playing between five and seven times a week, and was very lucky to have been coached by the captain of the GB Veterans team. Unfortunately, I stopped playing during Sixth Form because of Covid but I knew coming into Cambridge that I wanted to start playing again. I went along to the University trials and, despite my lack of fitness and rusty technique, scraped a place in the second team last year. I’ve been playing consistently on the Uni Second Team ever since. 

I mentioned to one of my mates on the University team that Trinity Hall didn’t have a squash team so he recruited me to play for Jesus Squash Team last year, which was good fun and got me accustomed with the college leagues. I knew, however, that with the amount of people at Trinity Hall wanting to play regular squash, and having the facilities to do so, it was criminal that we had no team. So this year I set up the Trinity Hall Squash Club. As part of this, we have both training sessions and a team in the college leagues. 

The training sessions run once a week and are a great opportunity for anyone to play, regardless of their standard. I tend to start the sessions by ensuring that we focus on technique by doing drills and giving feedback before going into some match play. This means everyone gets the experience to play matches and the opportunity to put their technique into practice. The team (who have matches once a week) managed to get promoted last term and after getting through the tough box group stages of Cuppers this year, the team went to the University Sports Centre to play in the final day. We beat Clare in the quarterfinals and John’s in the semi-finals but unfortunately lost to Emma in the finals. A special shout-out to Nathan Clark, Ethan Walker and Jack Rennie for their mammoth performances.

We have around 15 people who regularly come to training and play College matches, and I’m hoping to expand it next year by putting another team in the college leagues.  I’ve been very lucky to have such a varied range of people play at the club. We have a great batch of first years, who will hopefully ensure that the team doesn’t fizzle out, PhD students who provide experience, and everything in between.

If anyone wants to get involved, regardless of if you’ve ever picked up a racket up before, you can contact me at on244.