Squash and the Olympic Games

Debate between Christina Rees and Graham Stringer

Tuesday 19th July 2016 Westminster Hall

[Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered squash and the Olympic games.

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and it is great to see the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), in her place. I know how passionate she is about sport and I promise not to mention how well Wales did in the football.

So there I was in the newly built Bridgend recreation centre in the summer of 1975, working as a part-time sports assistant in the summer holidays, earning money to get me through university. Sport has always meant so much to me. I was very shy when I was a child and was bullied, so my mother sent me to judo classes to strengthen me up. I got a black belt first dan when I was 13 and a fourth dan in 1974. I may come across as being rather feeble but I do have a dark side, so be very scared.

I went on to represent Wales schools in hockey, tennis and athletics. Sport gave me a focus and confidence, and it made me a team player, so working in sport is an absolute pleasure. And now it is difficult to stop me talking.

Anyway, I was teaching in the main hall of Bridgend recreation centre when I heard this “thud, thud” noise, so I went to investigate. I climbed some stairs to a balcony and saw two men in a room using strangely shaped tennis rackets to belt a little rubber ball into submission. It was love at first sight—with the game, not the men. I hired a racket, scrounged a ball and spent every spare minute between shifts on court, teaching myself to play squash.

The players at Bridgend recreation centre adopted me and I joined the squash club. I made the men’s team and was spotted by Squash Wales, which invited me to the trials for Wales ladies. That was in early December and I did not hear anything afterwards, so I assumed that I had not made the grade. Then, just before Christmas I was reading the sport section of the national newspaper, as you do, when I saw, “Chris Rees makes home international team after playing squash for only six months”, so I thought, “Ah, that’s a really nice story,” before realising that it was referring to me. The selectors had forgotten to tell me that I had been picked.

There began a long career. I represented Wales more than a hundred times, playing at No. 1 for the team in some matches, and I won some titles, including the Dutch Open. However, I lost the Welsh Closed Final eight years in a row, which takes a bit of doing. I seem to remember that one year I was two games up and 8-0 up with match ball, and I managed to lose 10-8 in the fifth game. That was a classic Rees performance.

Squash has given me so much: fun; fitness; friends; and a job. I retired as a player in the 1990s and in 2004 I called Squash Wales as I was looking for an old friend. The director of coaching and development, Mike Workman, said, “Chris Rees! Haven’t heard from you for over 10 years. Thought you were dead! We need more women coaches. There’s a course tomorrow—I’ll put your name down.” So I said, “No, I’m a player. I can’t coach. I haven’t picked up a racket for 10 years.” Somehow I lost that argument with Mike and I lost many more when he subsequently became my boss.

I ended up on that course and many other coaching courses. I became a level 3 coach, a tutor, an assessor and a Welsh national coach. I also had the honour of being awarded Sport Wales Female Coach of the Year in 2008. I am the only racket sport coach to have received that award—so far. Playing for Wales, representing my country and pulling on that red shirt was one of the best experiences of my life, but finding a youngster and coaching them through from being a beginner to playing for Wales, and watching them develop skills and tactical maturity, is much better.

It is difficult to choose just one player to speak about today, but Josh Lee was only nine when I started coaching him. He was so small that he used two hands to hold the racket, on both the forehand and backhand sides, but he was so talented that he was beating children much bigger than himself by being clever. Nevertheless, being two-handed restricts a player’s range of shot and their ability to reach for the ball, and it is very wearing on the hips. I knew that if Josh wanted to make the Welsh squad, I had to turn him into a one-handed player, but that meant he would have to go back to square one and lose to players he had never lost to before. I explained to him what I was doing and he understood. So we used a cut-down racket. He felt stronger with his left hand, so we tied his right hand behind his back. Then we spent many hours recreating his swing and grooving his shots. He went on to become a fine player and represented Wales. I am so proud to have helped Josh and all the other children I have coached.

Many people are surprised to learn that squash is not an Olympic sport; they assume that it has been in the Olympics for many years. Sadly, that is not the case. Squash is gladiatorial, dynamic, physically demanding and mentally challenging; it is like chess on legs. It teaches players strategy, tactics and how to outmanoeuvre an opponent, so it is an ideal grounding for a political career.

Squash is the only racket sport where players share the same space and it is a sport for life. Children as young as four are taking up squash and there is a masters circuit for everyone from the over-35s to the over-75s, with competitions in many countries, as well as the world and European championships. Welsh men became the over-70 world champions; they were all skill, trickery and bandages, but there was not much movement.

Over the years, the rules of squash and the dimensions of courts have become standardised, although some would argue that the rules are open to interpretation and manipulation, which sounds a bit familiar. Just ask our Squash Wales world referee, Roy Gingell, who has refereed some of the toughest and most competitive matches on the world circuit. He used to have hair like mine when he started refereeing; now he has a “Wayne David haircut”.

Why is squash not in the Olympics? It is a complete mystery to me. The International Squash Rackets Federation was formed in 1967; it is now called the World Squash Federation and is recognised as the international federation for squash by the International Olympic Committee. We now have over 50,000 courts in more than 185 nations, from the Arctic circle to the bottom tips of South America and Australia. Squash is a genuinely global sport that is played by millions of people all over the world. There have been male and female world champions from every continent. Last year, 47 countries hosted professional senior tour events, featuring players from 74 nations.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

Being another retired squash player myself, I have listened to my hon. Friend’s speech with great interest. Does she agree that squash is more in keeping with the Olympic spirit than synchronised swimming, and that when squash was introduced to the Commonwealth games in 2002, both singles and doubles matches were hugely successful and enjoyed by both the public and the participants?

[Christina Rees]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and I completely agree with him. I have yet to see the advantages of synchronised swimming, however hard I have tried.