The differences between Squash venues and Squash clubs, and why it’s important.

November 12, 2021

We define a squash VENUE as the physical “bricks & mortar” building where squash is played. This could be a dedicated squash venue, or it could be part of a larger facility such as a gym, leisure centre, hotel, school, military base,  etc. It could also be a outdoor/roofless facility.

We define a squash CLUB as the “human construct” that typically consists of multiple members, often run by a committee of members. Clubs will usually have and organise teams, competitions (internal and external), social events, etc.

We note that:

1. Some venues won’t have any clubs associated with them.
2. A club must be associated with one (or occasionally more) venues. It’s possible for a club to be temporarily venue-less if, for example, the club’s venue has been knocked down and a new one being built on the same or nearby location.
3. Sometimes a squash venue and a squash club present as one and the same, i.e, same name, same address, etc. This is typically the case where the venue is a dedicated squash facility. In some countries, like New Zealand this is a very common occurrence. In other countries, less so.

The global database of squash venues in our #SquashPlayersApp is initially and primarily focused on venues, NOT clubs.

Why?

Because:

1. As we’ve noted above, some venues don’t have any clubs associated with them. So we wouldn’t want to leave out venues on that basis.
2. We insist that a venue must first be listed on Google Maps before it can be added to our database. It’s highly likely that venues are already listed on Google Maps, far less likely that clubs are.
3. It means that we don’t have to door-to-door convincing club committee members that adding their club to our database is a good idea. Combined with the power of crowdsourcing, we can and do go right ahead and add lots of venues, without pause or politics 🙂
4. As explained above, they genuinely are two different things (or “entities”, in database terms), even when, undeniably, they look like one and the same thing. Venues and clubs have different attributes. For example,  a club would likely have a committee, whereas a venue wouldn’t. Conversely, you’d associate attributes of the venue (like parking, online booking, changing rooms, etc.) to the venue, not the club.

We acknowledge that, at time of typing, some of the venues in our database are actually/technically clubs. Therefore our challenge going forward is to:

1. Allow clubs to be added to our database as separate entities from venues.
2. Where currently a venue in our database is actually a club, we must allow the community to easily and actively help us to identify these occurrences, and make the necessary adjustments.

Onwards and upwards!

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