The Future Of Squash
by Bob Hanscom
Posted April 3, 2012
I do not think that squash will ever be classed among the greatest of games. At no great game is it so difficult to make a winning shot against an opponent in ones own class. At no great game is it necessary to be reduced to a gasping wreck before you admit defeat. At no great game has it been found so necessary to experiment, and again to experiment with the ball.
What then is the future of squash? Year after year more courts spring up and raise their crops of delight in battle, of thumping feet, of fitness and of temporarily overtired hearts. Year after year the game is played more widely, for the most part in a sporting and anything but press-conscious spirit. In some respects the position of the game is unique. It really does begin to look as if squash is going to be the first really popular game which cannot be capitalized upon - or played before roaring crowds.
Tennis, from its infancy, was always potentially a public spectacle, court tennis and rackets can never be popular because of the cost of the courts, balls and rackets, but squash appears to be taking a unique path of its own. Never, except perhaps by means of mirrors or of television, or by the aquariumization of the court, will it be possible for the final of the world championships to be watched by thousands.
Is it possible that a game with a doubtful reputation as regards to health, a game the limitations of which are known and admitted to by its votaries, a game which is incapable of being publicized...is going to take its place among the most popular pass-times of the future?
I rather think it is!
Published in The Squash Rackets Annual by K. C. Gandar Dower in...1938!
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