Court Work 2026
About Us
In the beginning . . . . (the current job is at the end of the page)
Our parent club, Highfield R.F.C., built the courts in 1972 partly over their popular and much-beloved dance hall. Since then we have tried to keep them up-to-date.
Originally the men's and ladies changing room and showers were side by side as can still be seen from the presence of two doors on the wall opposite Court 1. The earliest change was to build the present ladies changing rooms and the men's was expanded to occupy the area previously used by the two separate dressing rooms.
Courts fully re-plastered:
The first major court over-haul was carried out in 1993 when all three courts were fully re-plastered. The plaster on the walls had to be hacked back to the blocks and three different layers of material were applied to the walls, only the outer one being very white. Proderite was the surface coat used that time and is specially designed for squash courts. A man 'from the North' called Sam Adaire did the work but when some emergency or other arose he had to leave and the job was finished by a local man. As that preceded the popular use of mobile phones we have no pics to show! Maybe someone out there does?
'Thank be' for the heaters!
The next major innovation was the installation in September, 2005 of the gas heaters on all three courts. Before that Highfield courts were regarded as cold and this job, arguably, made the biggest difference to playing conditions at the club. Rallies lasted longer and the risk of injuries was probably reduced.
Funny Floors?
Unlike the 'normal' north-south running of the floorboards, because of how the original courts were built - see above - the floor-boards crossed the court horizontally. In addition after many years of sanding the courts (not always well done!) it was time to grasp that particular nettle and replace the floors on all three courts in 2012. Highfield R.F.C. borrowed the money for us as we couldn't do it in our own right.
We repaid it by means of raising a €50 levy on all our adult members in each of the following 3 seasons. As can be seen from the photo gallery above a lot of members were involved in volunteering to take up the old floors and subsequent clean-up work.
Glass-Backs and Live-Streaming:
That was Summer 2023 and, well, ye know all about those! This time the levy was again €50 but only once off.
To paint or not to paint?
The squash ball marks the walls and the rackets and balls can wear down and damage the walls in places. As described above the original courts were built in 1972 and were fully replastered in 1993.
Since then we have successfully repainted the courts with the appropriate squash court paint (bought from Ian Chivers in Belfast) on three occasions. However, our most recent venture in the summer of 2025 was less successful although it looked perfect at the start!. Due to issues around the quality of the paint used and how it was applied we have experienced much more ball marking and also much farther up the court than is usual. The paint as also flaked in various spots on all three courts. As the finish was rougher than usual the ball gained more traction on the side walls resulting in more marking and also an effect on the accuracy of ball trajectory (not that the the latter makes much difference to this author!).
Back Right of Court 1:
You will probably have noticed that there is always more damage done to the back right of court one in the boasting area. Constant wear and tear has resulted in more damage there than on the other courts. That is because there has always been a hollow there arising from the original construction of the wall.
This year we decided to grasp both nettles and we are opening up the back right of C1, blocking it up to remove the hollow and then putting a skim of plaster on all three courts. Other than the usual minor repair work in the usual boasting areas we expect that future wall work will involve cleaning rather than painting. We hope it will turn out to be a successful job and that it will result in even better squash!