The Northern Joe Cup is now in its third year and this year the event is even bigger and better with a full week of squash-related activities and fundraising.
By Piers Townley
From the 20-26th November supporters of The Brain Tumour Charity will be staging the Northern Joe Cup
Alongside the professional squash tournament, there will be local league matches, exhibitions from some of the top players in the world and over 200 children being given taster sessions as part of a coordinated outreach programme with Manchester City Council and the Professional Squash Association Foundation.
Isaac in the Pro tournament 2022
Joe’s legacy
Over the last two years the event has raised almost £20,000 for the Northern Joe’s Fund, which the Rawcliffe family set up to help raise funds and awareness in memory of their son Joe who died in 2020.
"This was partly about giving back to the squash family for the help that they gave us, sponsoring an event for young players, but also about raising money, and most importantly awareness, around brain tumours."
Richard said: “We decided to start doing squash competitions in 2021 for a couple of reasons. Squash has been a huge part of Joe’s brother Isaac’s life and as a sport it is very much a family. When we were struggling towards the end with Joe it was very much the squash family, and particularly his coach, who stepped up and helped Isaac.”
Squash as an Olympic sport
“Since last year squash has been announced as an Olympic sport for the 2028 games and the increased interest in the sport will hopefully help to increase exposure for this year’s event and help us to make a lot more noise around raising awareness of the signs and symptoms of brain tumours.
“This year we have a number of the world’s top 100 players in our tournament including local players some of whom may well be Olympic stars of the future.”
“Our son Joe was an amazing, funny, gifted, compassionate, loving and faithful individual much loved by his friends and family and taken way too soon. We want to do as much as we can to help raise awareness and help other families like ours who have gone through and are going through what we have been through get a better outcome.”
“The combination of sport and charity at a local level like this is not something we have seen very much of and this year we have been lucky enough to have attracted a number of new sponsors to help us fund a bigger event and to raise even more awareness.
“Our amazing team of volunteers have once again stepped up with one of the main driving forces behind our tournament, Josh Taylor, pulling out all the stops to make the event happen.”
Josh Taylor said: “The Northern Joe Cup is an amazing event that manages to bring squash and charity together. It’s a unique model in a lot of ways. The squash community is a hugely supportive one and the festival of activities across the NJC generate an unrivalled atmosphere.”
