WHAT ME TIRED? NAAZZZzzz

Peter Nicol: Never tired of running. Photo © 2006, Debra Tessier.

At the official Peter Nicol farewell,/retiring press conference held at the RAC Club in London, I asked Peter if he ever got totally tired of the constant training, if there were times he said  ‘To hell with’, turned over and went back to sleep.

He said that had never happened but on one occasion, in that intense two year period where he lived like a monk and did nothing but train, one morning he got up  and as he was tying his shoelaces on his trainers, he fell asleep. Standing up.  Neil Harvey, whose house he lived in, relented from his usual role as pitiless taskmaster and told Peter he had better go back to bed.

THE UNKNOWN PETER NICOL (AS CONFIRMED BY THE BRITISH PRESS)
Despite being one of England’s few world champions, Peter Nicol rarely got the acknowledgement he deserved. When asked if he minded not being recognized walking down the street  Peter replied “I was not in squash to become famous but to learn about myself and my place in the world.”  And just to prove how right he was, the  Independent on Sunday ran this quote. And the photo above the quote? Why, that of Lee Beachill. If even some of Britain’s leading sportwriters don’t know  Nicol from Beachill, what chance the rest of the populace?

IS THIS A WORLD-WIDE EXCLUSIVE SCOOP?
Chatting to various people at the RAC,  I came upon that august club’s “Chairman of Squash”. (How these clubs love committees and chairpersons!).

I started to lecture him about how the British Open had been having problems  getting a decent sponsor since Hi-Tec  moved on a decade or so ago. And because the RAC and the  English SRA had such a long history together, why didn’t he RAC sponsor the British Open? They had very rich members and loads of money. (When the RAC was bought by an American company five years ago, every member received £35,000 (that was worth a cool U$ 52,000 back then). Blow me down if this chappie doesn’t look a little surprised and then admits that yes, indeedy, he had been talking to his committee and they had been discussing that very subject. So:

The British Open

Sponsored by The Royal Automobile Club

Has a lovely ring to it, no?

NICOL DAVID MADE TO ENTER BRITISH OPEN?
The story in the Malaysian papers was that Nicol David, the defending British Open champion, really didn’t want to enter  the tournament this year because it was too small, not enough ranking points.  Well, sorry, Nicol, that is not your decision to make, said the  big guns of Malaysian squash. They have invested a lot of money in little Nicol and she is a major superstar at home where world champions are very thin on the ground. Colonel (retired) A  J Wong, one of the very powerful men in that country, told the Malaysian newspaper that he thought she should defend her title, for the prestige  etc etc. And true enough a few days later, her entry was trumpeted by  Paul Walters, the man behind the British Open this year.

THE UK CIVIL WAR
Paul Walters, not only runs tournaments, he now publishes his own magazine, squash annual, has his own website, issues his own press releases ( I get every one of his press releases three  times, which is why he has such a huge database) manages players, sells rackets and has his fingers in more squash pies than he has fingers. He even tried to bu a 50% share of the Pontefract squash club. (He also doesn’t quite understand the term ‘conflict of interests’). He is one of those guys who thinks that if you are not for  him you are against him.

So when he read that Eventis were boasting that their English Open was almost as big  and as important as his British Open, he got terribly upset and complained to the powers that be that Howard Harding, who had issued the press release on behalf of Eventis  and is also the press officer for the PSA, had a conflict of interests.  Fortunately neither the PSA WSF, WISPA  or Howard Harding took Walters’ petulance seriously. Maybe Paul should try Greenpeace for some support.

TELEVISION COVERAGE? DON’T GET ME STARTED
Before I write another word, let it be known that I generally abhor television for its trivialization of the world’s most powerful medium. So when BBC television  turned up in Sheffield for coverage of the Mamut English Open, I was ready to push over cameras and cut out commentators tongues.  As we sat in front of the front walls, we (the press) were told not to wear light clothing because that would be picked up by the cameras shooting through the back wall. Oh yes, Martin please don’t read you newspaper because it is too white.  The result of all this mayhem, all these bloody cables and cameras, the important people walking around with clipboards and air of self- importance (and believe me, no TV people are more pompous than BBC people who feel that they sit on the right hand of god), was a mere 25 minutes of “highlights”  that arrived on our screens at home 24 hours later.

Less than a third of the time was actual on-court action, the rest being made up of interviews and other cute stuff which they call ‘colour’: Peter Nicol driving around Sheffield, so the cameraman can sit in the passenger seat and film the interview while  driving. Now correct me if I’m wrong, but when people tune into a TV sports program, don’t  they want to see the sporting action?   So we got a few rallies from this or that match, a shot of Lee Beachill falling in his semi-final necessitating his withdrawal, the final rally  (yes!, one rally) of the women’s final followed by a shot of Lauren Briggs holding the trophy that was on the screen for such a short time it was almost subliminal, and then  about  ten minutes of the Lincou/ Gaultier final which thankfully included the final rally of 82 shots (I counted them).

And the commentary? Grrrr! An absolute shitload of superlatives ( and I choose that description carefully) from Mathew Syed, where every rally and every shot was fantastic and wonderful and stunning and – oh shut up.

SQUASH IS BAD, SQUASH IS GOOD, DEPENDING ON THE PAYMASTER

Lauren Siddall at the English Open. Photo © 2006, Fritz Borchert.

Who is Matthew Syed? A former British table tennis champion, turned journalist who a few years ago wrote one of the worst , twisted and prejudiced  features  I’ve ever read. His editor at The Times had obviously told him to do a hatchet job on squash, and he did just that. Objectivity is not a word that Mr Syed has come across in his Thesaurus.

He had interviewed Peter Nicol in the friendliest way (All Brit champs together)  and Nicol had confided in him about his upcoming use of the Crucible for squash. Within weeks Syed had  arranged to have a ping pong tournament in the same venue. When Nicol saw Syed’s cheap tabloid-type article he was furious and issued a condemnatory statement that had smoke coming out of his ears.

And now Mr Syed is commentating on a squash tournament and telling everyone what a great, fantastic, wonderful, stunning sport it is. It’s amazing how a tv camera and a large BBC cheque can change a man’s viewpoint isn’t it?