SlodgerBlog

One of the only forms of exercise I manage to do regularly is playing squash at my local sports club on a Sunday night.

Squash is one of those sports like golf where you have to be able to play before you can play (if that makes sense). You need to be fairly proficient before you can actually play anyone properly in order to practice and improve, it’s a chicken and egg situation.

Fortunately the majority of players are of an accommodating disposition and will happily ‘play to’ a novice player’s abilities, to allow them to actually play a few shots and run around a bit.

Squash playing has declined drastically from its heyday in the 1980s when it was virtually impossible to book a court without camping out at the sports centre a week in advance. These days many clubs are closing their courts and replacing them with billiard rooms or, more recently, gyms with cycling machines and treadmills.

I find this very saddening as the competitive spirit, the drive to improve and beat a better opponent and the simple cameraderie found in a sport like squash provide a so much more fulfilling experience than plodding on a treadmill or step machine, listening to an iPod.

My Sunday night club meeting is a wonderfully unstructured arrangement with people turning up at whatever time they are able and playing whoever is not yet on a court. We use American scoring (first to 21, all points count) to keep matches to a short duration, rather than the more usual English scoring where points only count to the server, with the serve changing over when the opponent scores.

All matches are played in a gentlemanly (or ladylike) manner with the finer points of the rules only adhered to in a mutually agreed manner. The variety of abilities ensures that people are able to face a challenge and provide a challenge so deriving maximum enjoyment.

We all need more exercise and those of us who find the thought of a gym faintly disturbing should beat a track to the nearest squash club and get some proper competitive sport into our lives.