Loughborough-based volunteer recognised with unsung hero accolade

Pauline Young has won the Unsung Hero of the Year award at the 2023 England Squash Awards for her work as a trustee and volunteer Lead Coach at Charnwood Squash and Racketball Club.

The club is a charitable incorporated organisation running at a local leisure centre, created by Pauline and the other trustees, who had been hosting leagues and sessions sporadically prior.

Pauline, who is a level two qualified coach, said:

“There was no structure to what we had. Then a group of us, two or three years ago, felt that it would be quite useful to pull it together a little bit and so rather than just having leagues over there, and teams over there, we actually put it within the auspices of a club.”

The club has gone from strength to strength since its inception and aims to encourage enjoyment of squash whilst contributing to talent pathways and improvement programmes for all players, irrespective of age, social background, ethnicity, ability or gender.

Young has done a lot of work with local primary schools using portable equipment. Over 260 school children have taken part in one or more sessions during school since lockdown, including several pupils with learning and behavioural difficulties.

The club working with schools was setup after funding from one of the trustees. Pauline explained: “One of our trustees has always been interested in investing in kids. He's supported juniors in the past and I'm not quite sure how it came about, but he was prepared to put some money into supporting squash in primary schools. It was quite infectious, the more I enjoyed it, it was quite successful.

“What really hit the button was Off the Wall Squash, they did a workshop about leading or creating input unions, but particularly in schools. I went and it was just brilliant. They gave some basic tools they use, shared their experience, some of their paperwork and after that they were a point of contact.”

The club has developed a strong community with a number of families now involved, something that Pauline is particularly proud of. She said: “It’s a community thing, there’s several examples, one of the boys who went to one of the schools joined a junior session and his mum came along and helped score the local tournament we hosted.

“We had another girl who was there, she joined the juniors, she had a dad who used to play squash who got on court with her, and he realised how much he missed playing squash.”

Pauline hopes to get more young girls involved in the sport and with squash in an exciting period following the Olympic inclusion, she hopes the club can continue to grow.

Pauline concluded:

“It's nice to be recognised, it does take an awful lot of my time and energy, which I'm more than happy to do. It counterbalances some of the other things I do. We've been given a bit of a boost with squash getting into the Olympics, so anything we can do just to really try and kickstart people playing is great.”

Find out more about the 2023 Awards.