The memory of young English player Joe Rawcliffe, at just 27, continues to be remembered with a powerful serving of squash and raising thousands for charity. Not many PSA events can attest to that.

Rawcliffe rejoiced in the court nickname of Northern Joe, and now the tournament and accompanying festival of squash named after him has helped raise over 100,000 for the overarching Northern Joes Fund Brain Tumour Charity.

In November the Northern Joe Cup will attract almost 800 squash enthusiasts who will enjoy activity ranging from squash clinics, amateur team matches and individual tournaments. It will culminate in a PSA Challenger $9k tournament.

This festival of squash was the idea of Joes father Richard and brother Isaac, both themselves keen squash players, who enlisted the services of their clubs (Cheetham Hill Squash) elite level guru Josh Taylor to help run it.

Now, as the Northern Joe Cup continues to grow exponentially, Josh explained just how important it is to all at Joes home club of Cheetham Hill to ensure his memory lives long through the squash festival named after him.

Josh shared: It is just really sad but the cancer diagnosis for Joe was slow and delayed and that was a big factor. And so the event was named after Joe when he sadly passed in January 2020 from a brain tumour.

At the time of his passing squash was a great focus and help for Isaac and a lot of the squash community were very supportive of him and we rallied around him as a group at the Cheetham Hill Squash club and hopefully it has been a great place for him through all of this.

Joes father had wanted to create a squash tournament to help raise money for the charity and wondered if squash and the charity could merge to build on the cause and money raised.

So out of all that was born the Northern Joe Cup and now I believe we have raised over 100k in total while the squash tournament has raised pretty close to 15 grand for the last two years, added Josh.

But we have also worked hard to explain the warning signs and just make people aware of the dangers of this type of cancer while Richard and his helpers have distributed flyers and circulated a video around the local area in this respect.

The Northern Joe Cup started in 2020 at Cheetham Hill (Manchester), despite the facility being just a three court club, 5,000 was raised for the charity and a real buzz created around the local squash community and beyond.

While in the second year the nearby Fairways Lodge was added bringing with it a hotel and hospitality opportunity that has been vital in growing the event into the festival of squash and sociability it is now.

This year there will be around 100 school kids involved through clinics run by Josh, who helped mastermind Jasmine Huttons recent UK National Championship triumph, with around 250 squash players involved and a total of just under 800 people engaged.

Delving into the detail Josh explained how they did it. Initially Joes father Richard made a personal donation to help, he said, and then we devised a charity event where we have a PSA event at the top which is the pinnacle and draws everyones attention to the tournament.

Off the back of that we have lots of Amateur level tournaments, fundraising activities and we create a full festival of squash for the week.

The idea is to make it as sociable as possible and to get as many people as poss coming to watch squash and take part in it.

Richard and Isaac both know the power of our sport and trying to get people to engage with squash and take it up is also a key part of the Northern Joe Cup.

Now we have two venues running for the whole week and with the hotel involved it means people can come and stay where they are playing and this year that has allowed us to add a lot more socially with a live band and functions across the week.

Also the local community has grabbed hold of it and one of the local pubs, Maccas Bar, is doing one of the social nights after the league night for food with a charity raffle and auction.

Now a PSA Challenger $9k tournament the Northern Joe Cup has flourished year on year as Josh explained: We started as a 3k, then a 6k and this year a 9k as basically we got a grant in from PSA to bump it up and we have sponsorship.

Moving forward we are looking to sell a title sponsorship and make the Northern Joe Cup sustainable on its own and we have some big conversations to have in this respect.

But in terms of making money for charity, I am sure we are the only PSA event to do that, and certainly in terms of the quantities we have raised over the last few years.

But I believe we have found a format where it is not just about putting a tournament on but running it in tandem with other events to make it worthwhile.

So we just want to keep making more and more money for the charity ultimately that is what drives us.

The event will include the North West Counties League with Warrington versus Cheetham Hill, where last year Charlie Lee and Joel Makin starred.

What is vital is that everyone who enters knows they are doing their bit to raise money for a hugely worthwhile charity and also, and every bit as important, to keep Joes memory alive, added Josh.

There is still time to register for the Northern Joe Cup tournament