Scott Graham has lauded the “big strides” Squash Ireland have taken in the last 12 to 18 months. Nearing the second anniversary of his appointment as CEO in 2023, the administrator is preparing for next Sunday’s latest AGM at the Sport Ireland campus in Blanchardstown.
Ahead of his presentation at that meeting, Graham reflected on the progress made by Squash Ireland in recent times. “Look, it has been fantastic,” he said about the development that has happened.
“One reason I took the role in Squash Ireland – or Irish Squash as it was at the time – was because I saw the potential within the sport.
“We always want to do more. We see that we are certainly not perfect, but we have made big strides in the last two years and there is definitely more to come – we are only getting started on this stuff.
“It is really satisfying. Within the Irish sports system, we are recognised now as one of the leading smaller national governing bodies. We were shortlisted for the NGB of the year award for two years running.
“We also gave a presentation at the European Squash AGM earlier this year and from a European perspective we are probably recognised as the fastest developing federation in Europe.
“We are making good strides, but we recognise there is obviously a lot more to do. We have a very ambitious board, a very ambitious staff and some great volunteers who support the mission and who love the sport. We are in a great place.”
Drilling into some of the specifics, Graham added: “What we have done over the last 12 to 18 months is tried to put the foundations in place so the sport can grow in years to come.
“From a governance perspective, there was a change to the constitution, a change to the board whereby it’s a more strategically focused board and they don’t have those operational roles that they would have had in the past.
“We have independent directors on the board now which has added a lot to the organisation in terms of expertise, oversight, governance and real rigour around how we do things, what we do and our strategy and planning for the future.”
Referencing other Squash Ireland foundations that are now in place, Graham continued: “We have a finance manager in now who started one day a week and due to the level of grant activity and the complexity of the different grants that we are managing, he is up to three days a week now.
“We hired a number of different development officers… and that is just a taster of some of the foundations we have put in place. We are looking to build and grow, to really move the metrics that matter with participation numbers, tournament entries, the number of qualified coaches and so on.
“We are working more closely with the Sport Ireland high-performance unit now about our programme and how we can develop and professionalise it.
“We moved from a day rate system with various national coaches across all the age groups and now have Arthur Gaskin as our national coach, David Noone in junior performance (U17/U19), and Michael Conroy who looks after the younger ages. They are all part-time with us now and we hope to increase that capacity over time.
“We have also just recently launched our Junior Performance Academy, so that will look to provide more structure and professionalised support to the young players.
“There will be a whole suite of squad sessions but educational stuff as well around nutrition, strength and conditioning, anti-doping, mindset, all of those different tools that people need in their tool kit to be the best that they can be.
“On the high-performance front, squash will be an Olympic sport and will be in LA in 2028. We have long felt there is good potential in Ireland within this high-performance element of the sport.
“We have a long history in terms of former world number threes, number sevens, a lot of top 20 players, huge success on the international stage.
“It’s just about bringing our current crop of players through and giving them everything they need to be the best that they can be.”
