Welcome to The Dungeon: Doncaster, Dunnington and the white-hot atmosphere of squash's Yorkshire Premier League

To visiting teams in the Yorkshire Premier League accustomed to playing in front of glass-backed walls, it can be an intimidating atmosphere, overlooked from above by supporters who cheer points by banging on the rafters and the wooden bleachers, and from the side by rubberneckers watching from behind the glass in the comfort of the bar area.

The heat is turned up, the lights glare down, the cheers echo off the walls and the temperature rises in the cauldron below.

Welcome to Wednesday night in one of the best squash leagues in the world.

Yorkshire folk are never shy in trumpeting their own but when it comes to squash, best league in the world is no idle boast.

The top male and female players on the planet have been coming from far and wide to play in the White Rose county’s professional league for years.

Just this Wednesday for Doncaster’s top-of-the-table clash with Dunnington, Greg Lobban - ranked the 20th best men’s singles player in the world right now and a four-time Commonwealth Games medallist - got the train down from Edinburgh earlier in the day and stopped off for a game at Doncaster Squash Club in Bennetthorpe before heading out of Heathrow the following day and onto a tournament in Hong Kong.

“I’ve played a lot of league matches around Europe, but this is one of the top leagues in England and it’s second to none,” says Lobban, whose match fee comes from a combination of the club, his own club back home and sponsors.

“There’s a lot of players from the top 100 who play in this league. They don’t play it every week, but the standard is really high. It’s a nice way for us to give back to the clubs, and you get a great atmosphere.”

Doncaster are the Yorkshire Premier League upstarts, the exception to the tradition. The county’s top squash league has been in operation since 1961. Abbeydale in Sheffield and Queens in Halifax shared spells of dominance, before the Malcolm Willstrop factor took hold in Pontefract and the influence of Nick Matthew earned Hallamshire a maiden title last season.

Doncaster were a Division One team not so long ago. Now they are blazing a trail to a first title in a league in which two of the five players each night must be Yorkshire based.

One of those on Wednesday was Joel Arscott, a 24-year-old New Zealander who came to Yorkshire because the standard of squash on offer in this county was better than his own country.

“When you’re based here, all you hear about is the Yorkshire League,” says Arscott, who relocated with fellow members of his country’s top six to come and train with Matthew at his elite training centre in Sheffield.

“I came to Doncaster and enjoyed the atmosphere, so I asked can I coach at your club?”

Dave Cooke, a strength and conditioning coach for Doncaster RLFC among many sporting roles in the area, had taken over the squash club in 2019 with former player Les Close and wanted to breathe new life into it. He made Arscott the club pro. Eighteen months ago they set up a junior section that has gone from zero to 40 players and a women’s section that has done similar.

“In homage to the patrons here, we try and bring as good a standard of squash to watch as we can get, within reason,” explains Cooke of the team they have built, one which includes emerging Pontefract professional Asia Harris, a teenage girl who often plays against the men in the league.

“If our club was successful enough to win the league it’d be a massive accolade for us, would be great to see for the kids coming through and fantastic for a new city.

“But we’re just happy being competitive. Long-term we want to be here in 10 years still competing and producing our own homegrown players – like Pontefract do – kids who have started with us at six and seven.”

If Cooke is more res pectful of the league’s history, the ultra-competitive Arscott - all fist-pumping energy as he beat Seif Heikal – is a little more partisan.

“We’re playing for the pride of being the best club in Yorkshire,” he says in his Kiwi accent. “We call it the old dungeon club. People smacking the windows, standing on seats to get a better view.

"We pride ourselves on being an old-school squash club.

"Squash is one big family - but that doesn’t mean it’s not extremely competitive.”

York club Dunnington have won the title three times in the last decade but lost ground in the title race to Doncaster, who won 17-4 on Wednesday.

Their sole win of the night was earned by Matt Stephenson, a 51-year-old amateur who doubles up as the chairman of Yorkshire Squash, in the first of five matches on the night.

“The league at the moment is going from strength to strength,” he tells The Yorkshire Post after his victory.

“Last season we added an extra division into the league; Division 2 split into east and west, in which there are more club players.

“We are promoting squash in Yorkshire - we don’t want to get to the stage where it’s fully professional, there is an amateur element to the sport and I think it’s important to have club players involved.”

The big name pros do not play in this league for big money, they play in it for the calibre of opposition.

“We’ve always had great coaches like Malcolm Willstrop at Pontefract, Dave Pearson at Harrogate, Nick is now coaching, Lee Beachill,” explains Stephenson.

“Pontefract has always had that pull. Nick has now got that pull with his elite training programme.

“A lot of players from around the world come to Pontefract and Harrogate etc to train with the local pros.

“Nick is a great supporter of the league, he still turns out for Halamshire week in, week out. He’s a warrior, he hates losing.

“There’s been a conveyor belt of top players and it’s great to see people like that still putting their time back into the Yorkshire League.”

Olympic recognition huge for squash

​Friendly rivals on the night, the professionals, amateurs and supporters of Doncaster and Dunnington were united in their hope that squash’s elevation to the Olympic programme in 2028 yields greater awareness for their beloved sport.

Men’s and women’s singles will be played at the Los Angeles Games in five years time after decades of lobbying by the likes of Nick Matthew and James Willstrop. The sport’s sudden elevation opens up new avenues of revenue and participation.

“I’m hoping that squash in the Olympics will open the sport up to a wider audience,” says Dunnington’s Matt Stephenson.

“One of the problems with squash is the viewing of it. You have to develop these courts with glass walls, it makes it difficult to televise it.

“England Squash is an organisation in transition, they’re trying to put more money in for grassroots, but the challenges are padel which is growing in England and pickleball which is growing in the United States. In the past squash has been viewed as an elitist game and I don’t know why - maybe because it was attached to rugby or hockey clubs, or private members institutions in London. It’s actually a cheap game to play.”

At Doncaster they have ended memberships and made the club available for anyone to turn up and play. For their professionals like Joel Arscott, 24, and Greg Lobban, 31, a shot at the Olympics is career changing.

“It definitely changes the mindset of every aspiring squash player,” says New Zealander Arscott, who was an unused reserve for last year’s Commonwealth Games. “It’s not something you thought of when you got into the sport, so the chance to be Olympian means so much.”

Lobban added: “For squash as a whole, it’s huge. I feel like it’s always been a sport that’s in the shadows.

“But the spectacle of squash is great and hopefully with this it will continue to grow.”