By Alan Thatcher
Contributing Editor

A wise soul once said that chasing a squash ball around the court was very much like chasing women: as you get older you learn which ones to let go.

I stopped chasing women years ago, but somehow the urge to keep chasing that pesky little ball around the court still fires me up almost every day.

But, looking at the amount of booze being sunk on the balcony as they enjoyed the drama unfolding down below on court, it was obvious that most of them had never ventured into the land occupied by the two guys down there on the court. The territory where fitness and stamina was translated into pain, sweat and tears.

As I began to learn the game I was instantly captivated by one simple, deep-rooted feeling, the sheer joy of smacking that little rubber ball as hard as I could. I guess it’s a guy-thing, or a throwback to our hunter-gatherer days, that feeling of testing your physical limits and being encouraged by the results.

That feeling has never left me. As I improved my squash, and began climbing up the club ladder, I developed an insatiable thirst and hunger for knowledge of every aspect of the game: the great masters, their stories, their sacrifices, their joys and their tactics.

More relevant was learning how to beat the guys in Box Ten in the local leagues, and, more often than not, licking my wounds from the defeats, trying to learn from those painful experiences when I had been given the run-around by opponents whose ham-fisted unorthodoxy was a source of irritation and bafflement. Learning how to cope with so many different styles of play was also a great part of my squash education.

I also ventured for a few years into that territory of pain and suffering when, twelve years after being an absolute novice beginner, I moved to Kent and found myself as the club number one.

Working unsociable evening shifts on the sports desk of a London newspaper, I had plenty of time on my hands in the mornings and would spend hours on court practising shots and putting myself through the court sprints and ghosting routines recommended by the Old Masters like Jonah Barrington and Geoff Hunt.

As team captain I was able to arrange most of the team matches to coincide with my nights off, and I enjoyed both the competitive and social aspects of the sport.

Playing and learning is one thing. Training and learning is another. But transcending those processes is the ultimate squash education: watching and learning.

As my squash stepped up a notch, so did the entertainment available on my doorstep as the world’s leading professionals dropped by every year to compete every year in the Chichester Open.

It was a golden era for squash as the sport, and the tournament, made the seismic move from the cramped, sweaty confines of a 120-seater glass-backed court to the all-glass court situated on stage next door in the luxurious surroundings of the Chichester Festival Theatre.

At these two venues I witnessed the end of the Barrington-Hunt era and watched amazed as this teenage powerhouse called Jahangir Khan began his reign of dominance.

You wouldn't have known it from watching me play at my modest level, but Jahangir and I clearly had something in common. I could see that Jahangir shared that same animal instinct for smacking the ball as hard as humanly possible. The main difference was this: JK was clearly in the superhuman category. I was still a raw but keen novice.

As I improved, my working patterns became less predictable and I found myself unable to play team squash on a regular basis. However, as I neared my 40th birthday, I decided to make a massive push to increase my fitness levels in the hope of making an impact in the senior age-groups. I added gym and track work to my fitness schedule, lost a lot of weight and felt ready for a new challenge.

Then came the car crash. I was driving home from a club committee meeting one winter’s night when I breasted a hill and found a car driving straight towards me, on my side of the road. This boy racer slammed his car into mine at 70mph. My car, travelling at the legal limit of 30mph, was shunted backwards into a lamp-post. The engine came smashing into the body of the car. Miraculously, it rested on my knees, taking just a nick of skin out of each one.

My face crashed into the dashboard and I had numerous cuts from the flying glass as the windscreen exploded into a million pieces. The seatbelt locked one shoulder in place and spun the other one forward. It took months of osteopathy to get me walking straight again. My ribcage was smashed and the pain was unbearable. I was in a wheelchair in hospital before I was able to walk again.

Amazingly, I was back on a squash court within six months. The summer league team was a man short, and, as club captain, I reluctantly stepped in to make up the numbers. This was my first time back on court and, at first, just the noise of the ball came as a huge shock.

I played at five in the team and scraped a narrow win. Physically I was never the same again. My ribs healed up but the back injury has plagued me for years. So too has the weight I put on while I was in rehab.

I had so many kind visitors who all brought round red wine, beer and chocolate. It was great, it was lovely. But it resulted in twenty pounds of unwanted lard accumulating round my middle. Thanks guys!

The accident changed my feeling for the game. I loved it even more. Learning to walk again was a major obstacle, going back to work was another. Getting back on court was a joy. Winning no longer mattered. Simply being able to play again was enough.

Every day of my life is a God-given bonus. I could so easily have been killed in that smash. The police told me the seat-belt saved my life and the medics told me that my squash fitness helped me cope with the trauma and get back on my feet quicker than most people.

I carried on playing, I got my England Squash coaching badges and developed a passion for teaching. I was still learning all the time. I was privileged to watch Jahangir and Jansher come and go, and then enjoyed the Nicol-Power rivalry at close-quarters as my involvement with the game moved into event promotion and TV commentary.

Now the Egyptians have created a new era of wizardry and I hope to be able to contribute to the game by creating new events and new campaigns to try to halt the decline in the media coverage of our sport.

On court I know I am slowing down. I have other priorities in life. So I’ve decided to stop the partying. And make one final effort, despite being the wrong side of 50, to get fit again and see if I can get my body back in the kind of shape it was in before that car crash.

I’m lucky. I’ve got plenty of willing training partners. I love the routines, and I still love that old, almost-forgotten feeling of pain and suffering when you push yourself beyond your own limits on court.

In the coming weeks I will be sharing some of the training routines that keep us old ’uns feeling young, and also sharing plenty of stories from down the years.

I look forward to friends old and new joining me here at Squash360 most Mondays.  Stay tuned.

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