“In the early thirties, when trousers were wide and shorts were long, a group of Edinburgh lawyers and businessmen met regularly and bemoaned the fact that there were insufficient facilities readily available for playing squash”. Thus read the opening paragraph of the 1986 Edinburgh Sports Club history.

The images shown below exemplify what the Club stands for, and are on view in A1 scale in the lower squash corridor

***

A 12 page glossy brochure for those wishing a speedy look at the history of the club is now available – click here to view.

This history has been many years in the making: You will see photographs from the opening date and before, read the 50th Anniversary brochure from 1986, and a great number of documents and photographs spanning all the years until today. Another example is the brochure for the 75th Anniversary dinner on 9th July 2011. The many photographs in that document show the development of the club in the intervening years…and despite one description of the site as looking like a ‘hoarder’s living’ room, we must be doing something useful as it had by late-2024 accumulated over 4,000 visits with over 35,000 pages viewed in its 3 years existence.

A gallery is shown below which encompasses a number of the key events in the Club’s formation and evolution, from the plans prepared in February 1936, through the 9th October 1936 Opening to the victorious Scotland side versus England in 1964.

To access the various pages on the site, either select options from the menu above or alternatively there are graphics shown later on this page which will take you directly to the page you wish to view. Alternatively, you might like to try our Ten Minute Site Tour.

Club member Harold Hindle recently (Feb 2024) added an interesting historical link to our founding date – newspaper reports from the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games held in July/August 1936, just a couple of months prior to our opening. You might note on page 1 right hand column that nice Mr Hess greeted the International Olympic Committee in the absence of his boss. Harold advises that his interest is because his uncle – Jim Ginty, competed in the 3000 metres steeplechase, nearly qualifying for the final as can be seen here.

Our Club has always fostered a feeling of friendship and fellowship, as many of those contributing to the Interview pages were at pains to mention, and this feeling was captured wonderfully by Glyn Cave in his poem ESC – Extra Special Community You can also listen to Glyn reading the poem.

---

Click on any of the photo icons below to access pages of the history.

---

---

 

---