Despite the home court being located across the border and in a suburb 30 minutes away from Queanbeyan, the Queanbeyan Leagues Squash Club retained its name and continues to compete as a representative of the city.
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The club's original home courts, located at the Queanbeyan Leagues Club on Monaro Street, were closed almost a decade ago due to the poor conditions of the building and a slew of associated occupational health and safety hazards. Since their closure, members of the Queanbeyan squash contingent have had to travel to the University of Canberra in order to use its courts.
QLSC president Gavin Jackson said that the Leagues Club had continued to support squash financially and had been vital in ensuring their juniors program continued. But he also attributed the move from the local area to the decimation of their original junior reserves.
"In terms of numbers, we lost a lot of Queanbeyan members because Queanbeyan members didn't want to travel as much and junior's parents didn't want to drive, but we gained a lot of north siders," he said.
"So we have now got a 50-50 mix of people who live out north and around Gungahlin, and 50 per cent of the original Queanbeyan members who have committed to the drive."
Jackson also pointed out the additional sadness related to the fact that squash legend Heather McKay's hometown had been rendered without the existence of a viable set of courts, and spoke of the club's consideration of folding indefinitely.
"It's sad because Queanbeyan used to have quite a vibrant squash community and back in the heyday, around the Heather McKay era, there would have been hundreds of people playing squash in lots of teams playing in the local Canberra pennant," Jackson said.
"The courts were shut down and for a while we just had no courts, we were kind of a nomadic club, but we didn't want to actually wrap the club up because there were a lot of long-term friendships, and it's quite a tight committee and people have just been doing it for years, it's as much a social thing as it is a sport thing for all of these guys."
Jackson said the University of Canberra had been fantastic in putting the club up, but expressed hope in a return for squash in the Queanbeyan area, citing the proposed regional sporting complex in Tralee and the club's hope that squash courts will be inclusive in final plans.
