These two events are now major events in the club’s life, and as such have been awarded a page to themselves.

To view the 2021 Octoberfest event, click here...

Octoberfest

Jim McLauchlan reckons that the origins of Octoberfest lie in an annual match between Ballyearl, ourselves and possibly one other, which became known as the ‘ESC Squash Festival’. The event’s date in early November (reported in the 1996 October newsletter) conflicted with the Scottish Squash calendar, and they requested a date change (despite their not realising it was a social event), and October suited. Jim reckons the ESC Squash Festival started in the early 1990’s, but while it is briefly noted in 1996, the name seems to have changed to Octoberfest in 1997 by which time around 10 teams were participating, and the report in the October newsletter is shown in the gallery below. The event’s presence was for some reason is only rarely mentioned in Annual Reports.

On the topic of the paucity of photos (and winners) of Octoberfest, Dave Coutts said – You are very right about winners – a bit like Octoberfest in that prizegiving on the Sunday is not the best after the Saturday night!! I remember the 2013 winners as that was my Dundee Uni Old Boys team! There’s been years of Aberdeen dominance (Ross McHoul dream team). I think they generally win/won most years.  Gallery to follow, but pretty thin pickings – perhaps everyone concentrates on bar duties?

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OctoberFest 2021

Business returned almost to normal as a slightly slimmed-down event was enjoyed by many visiting clubs and ESC members alike. Teams entered from Ballyearl in Northern Ireland, Sedgefield in Yorkshire, Durham and Lansdowne Club in London, but the event was limited to 12 teams rather than the usual 18 or more. A Halloween party was incorporated into the Saturday evening activities, and many competitors and staff embraced the fancy dress rule, as can be seen from the photographs shown below. The winning team was ‘All for George’, but as usual everyone was a winner.

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Mayhem

In creating this history, one event where which the Editor long wished to establish the responsibility for the initiation, someone suddenly suggested Dave Coutts, and he describes how it happened.

“This was started by myself and Steve Sproule in 2012. I had just left Uni the year before and joined the club. Steve’s idea for sometime was to have an Octoberfest but for students but he didn’t have an ‘in’, so I got in touch with a lot of people from my Uni days and we got 14 teams from all over Scotland as well as from Cork, UCD and Trinity from Dublin which was class. Steve got Jägermeister as a sponsor which got the student interest too. Steven and I then ran the tournament and it was fantastic. The next year I got sponsorship from 305squash (which was the start of their connection with ESC) having come into contact with the guy who runs the company and another squash brand hitthenick.com who supplied t-shirts and goodies. They also helped with marketing and posters for 2013 which brought the involvement of Uni’s from England, as far as Bristol, and we got a full house of 16 teams. We also got the involvement of Greg Lobban, Dougie Kempsell and Alan Clyne which again brought more interest too and the following year (2014) we had 18 teams and a waiting list”. On being asked for a list of winners, or at least ideas Dave said “Not too sure of other trophy winners. Ken Steele could be a good shout. He has some knowledge base!!”. Once again, a pretty thin gallery – hopefully some past attendees will produce some more…