A New Year’s Day Statement In Support Of Howard Harding
by Rob Dinerman for DailySquashReport.com
Dateline January 1st --- At a time when the squash world’s need to have its events promoted, its players’ achievements publicized and its overall exposure maximized in the larger sports and world media has never been greater (read “Olympic Bid”), the disrespectful treatment that its foremost proponent Howard Harding has been receiving of late has been both highly disappointing and sadly self-defeating.
For years Harding did a remarkable job of promptly producing summaries of each day’s tournament play on behalf of the men’s pro tour (the Professional Squash Association, or PSA), the women’s pro tour (the Women’s Squash Association, or WSA, which changed its name from WISPA in 2011) and the European Squash Federation (ESF). His daily tournament coverage reports, always issued within hours after each day’s last match had ended (beginning with the qualifying and going straight through the final), were thorough, informative and entertaining, containing just the right complement of historical perspective and continuity, and the reliability level with which his write-ups were issued became such that the DailySquashReport.com site for which I write swiftly grew to depend on them, and on him, as a trustworthy source and staple of our coverage. DSR’s Publisher Ted Gross eloquently expressed this phenomenon in his May 1st one-year-anniversary statement when he saluted Harding and his contribution to squash reporting as “the straw that stirs the drink.”
Ever since the WSA decided to discontinue its relationship with Harding a year and a half ago in favor of handling the reporting in-house, there has been a commensurate drop in the tour’s exposure quotient and profile; at present, there is daily coverage (by Harding) of all the PSA events while the WSA often issues only one tournament write-up, disseminated after the event has ended.
Now we have just learned that the ESF has informed Harding (who had been covering their league matches and junior tournaments, pieces that we at DSR have frequently linked to) that they are terminating their relationship, having decided to do without a public-relations service from 2013 onwards. These organizations need MORE of the kind of coverage that Harding so expertly provides, not less. They are shooting themselves in the foot, and the wounds their shortsightedness is thereby inflicting are to both themselves and the sport as a whole as it seeks inclusion in the 2020 Olympic Games.
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