Opinion
These days there is a day for just about everything you can think of and then some.
There are such showstopping global issues as International Asteroid Day, the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic, World Tuna Day and even World Toilet Day.
With the existence of such significant opposition, it would be easy for other less trumpeted days to be overshadowed.
This is why I am here to alert you to the fact that today – Saturday, October 10 – is the 18th World Squash Day.
Some of you more mature readers may remember squash. Before people built and attended gymnasiums on an industrial scale, in the 1970s and 1980s everyone played squash.
It was played indoors, so it could be played in any weather or at any time of day and it provided a serious aerobic workout in an hour, before you then headed back to the office or on to the pub.
You could play squash as an end in itself, and squash competitions thrived across the country, or you could play it as a means to improve your movement, coordination and aerobic capacity as part of preparation for other sports. In particular it was popular with many footballers, all the way to the highest levels.
There were busy public squash courts in nearly every suburb and regional town and Australia was a world squash powerhouse.
From the 1960s through until the early 2000s, Australian players were always at or near the top of the squash tree, every bit as dominant as we had previously been as a tennis nation.
There were sporting legends such as the incomparable Heather McKay and Geoff Hunt.
From 1962 to 1981 McKay did not lose a single match, anywhere, anytime. In her 16 consecutive British Open victories, she dropped just two sets, neither of which was in a final. In 1967 she even won the prestigious ABC Sportsman of the Year award.
In her spare time McKay represented Australia at hockey and later found her way into the North American racquetball Hall of Fame.
The legendary Geoff Hunt was the best male squash player in the world in the 1970s, winning eight British Opens and four world titles, combining immense skill with groundbreaking fitness and iron determination.
Michelle Martin, Sarah Fitz-Gerald, Vicki Hoffman/Cardwell, Rachael Grinham and David Palmer were also all multiple British or World Open champions in this era.
And behind that impressive list there was incredible depth. Another seven Aussies won either title at least once through that period. Popular Adelaide sports broadcaster Chris Dittmar was a four-time runner-up at the World Open.
Squash was pretty much a part of the mainstream and we were bloody good at it.
But to an extent that was then, and this is now.
(Photo: Hannah Peters/Getty Images)
While squash has flourished in many countries around the world over the past 20 years, it has battled in Australia. Rising land values in the big cities have seen many public and private courts sold off and developed into apartments. Others have been replaced by gyms and other exercise facilities.
Further, squash has struggled to obtain commercial television coverage, denying the sport a vital audience. Of course, without television support, it denies the sport prize money that many other international professional sports enjoy.
And while squash is a Commonwealth Games sport, despite its best efforts it has failed to find its way into the Olympics, which is an atrocity, when you look at how many countries now play the sport at a high level and some of the pseudo-sports that have been accepted ahead of it.
Given their current dominance of the sport, it would be a great chance for Egypt to sweep a bunch of medals. Perhaps the Olympics may need to head to Cairo to get squash in.
But if occasionally in quieter moments you wonder about whatever happened to squash, I can assure you that it is very much still out there. We still have some fine players and some great facilities, and the game is still a terrific way to get some red-blooded competition into your life, as well as to create a thirst.
Currently in Melbourne, indoor sport is banned, and those of us who enjoy our squash are doing it tough. Pretty soon I trust that will be behind us and we will hopefully be back sweating it out on court.
So on Saturday if you are missing playing or if you want to learn more about what is happening on World Squash Day locally or globally, head to squash.org.au or worldsquashday.net and have a poke around.
And don’t forget that World Toilet Day is just around the bend!
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