At the end of 2020, a few ladies from Avalon Estate in Durbanville had swopped phone numbers to play some casual squash at the estates only squash court.
The group of ladies started growing and becoming more organised. They created a WhatsApp group to organise games between each other. Slowly, the group became more and more popular. They then arranged for coaching and assistance in creating a league structure from Chris Goslin (former Club Captain at DBV Squash Club).
The group has since settled into a Monday night routine at Durbanville Squash Club, with a professionally run league setup. The Avalon Ladies have grown to become a regular feature on a Monday night, bringing a combination of exciting squash and joyful cheering.
The league currently consists of ladies from Avalon Estate, Durbanville Squash Club and Evertsdal Squash Club; the league is made of a number of teams, each with unique names and team t-shirts and wondrous names like “White Wolves” and “Blue Ravens”!
If you visit DBV Squash Club on a Monday night , you will no doubt be drawn to the Avalon court as you explore the fantastic spirit and “gees” among the ladies.
Such is their organisation, the Avalon ladies league even includes reserves to fill in where required, which makes sense; there is no job more demanding than being a Mom. More astounding is that the majority of the Avalon ladies are mostly full time working Moms. Among them are dedicated employees in health care, the beauty industry, construction and retail. They even have a few powerful corporate executives who find their “release” playing squash.
The league format, as mentioned, is properly organised. Courts are pre-booked and the evening starts off just before 6pm. Matches are ordered by singles, followed by doubles. Doubles is new to all the ladies and regularly ends up with lots of laughs, especially with those maths skills needed to determine which side to serve from.
Team matches are organised by matching rankings 1v1, 2v2 etc and then once all have played each other, the 1’s play 2’s then 3’s play 4’s.
Doubles is initially 1’s and 2’s playing together and 3’s and 4’s. Later, 1’s and 4’s play together and the 2’s and 3’s. There is great opportunity for the weaker players to play against stronger players and in that way everyone gets to improve their game.
Matches are played based on points scored over time, then, at the end of each 10-week cycle the ladies have a prize giving based on total points scored by the team.
Prize giving is loads of fun! All the ladies donate prizes including wine (lots of it!), water bottles, trophies for best dressed and teams with the most gees.
This fun league will hopefully grow from strength to strength. Many of the ladies who started playing squash through the Avalon group are now entering WP League as they have improved so much and have found a passion for the sport.
Durbanville Squash Club is committed to social squash as part of the values of the Club. We have helped Avalon by providing courts for their scheduled league matches and the facilities at the Club allow for socialising before and after their games.
The new ladies who don’t belong to a club yet will hopefully join us at DBV once they have seen our facilities and have experienced the fantastic vibe our Club has to offer.
New entrants are always welcome at the Avalon Ladies Social Group.
If any other ladies would like to join, they are welcome to contact Shaun Venter, Club Manager at Durbanville Squash Club to provide further details.
Contact Email: info@dbvsquash.co.za
