OCTOBER 1999, London England

THE BRITISH OPEN - AS PREDICTED.

[SRA press release on British Open]

As predicted at the end of August , the British Open will take place in Aberdeen December 6-12. Despite a snotty rebuke from the Squash Rackets Association saying the information was incorrect- for which I am still awaiting an apology - Neil Walker and Alan Thatcher will be running it together with The Eye Group, the sports rights and production company that will soon be signing an eight year, £1.2 million contract with the SRA.

The money is coming from sportscotland , Aberdeen City Council with Hi-Tec and Slazenger as official equipment suppliers. A main sponsor is still being sought but the prize money is in place, a total of £75,000 ($124,000). Men's winner will get around $11,000 while the Women's winner's cheque will be $8,000. Prelims will bein the Aberdeen Squash Racquets Club with the later rounds on a Perspex court in the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre. The age groups will be held at the Mannofield Club.

The Eye Group, which signed a $10 million contract to deliver top English Soccer to the middle east television (I watched their programs while I was in Cairo) is involved in several sports including triathlon and equestrian stuff. They targetted squash as a viable sport and have been talking to the SRA since March. It was when they realised the lawyer would not be finished with the codicils in time for this year, that Graham Gutteridge, Eye's managing director, suggested bringing in Walker and Thatcher.

Next year Gutterideg said they will be up and running and will bring the Open down south again, probably to the Indoor Arena in Birmingham.

SHE'S ALL WRIGHT AND PLAYING AGAIN

Sue Wright was at the Open press conference and looking good again. She's been out of action since May, when a cold turned to flu, which then became viral pneumonia putting her in hospital for three days. She says she is slowly making her way back to full fitness and played in Monte Carlo, beating Rebecca Macree before falling to the marauding Vanessa Atkinson who knocked out three seeds. And that rumor of Wright moving to a Boston club… well she did have a conversation but there is no way, she says, that she is leaving England.

TEAM TACTICS OR THE ART OF POMMIE BASHING

There was quite a nice little farce at the World teams championships in Cairo. The England team wanted to bring in Mark Chaloner in place of the injured Peter Marshall. The tournament director seemed to think that this was within the rules which state that only a player of lower rank can be brought in as a replacement.

Marshall had no ranking because of a two year absence caused by chronic fatigue syndrome. However, he had played in England's World Cup winning team, behind Chaloner. The Australian and the Welsh team managers both objected to Chaloner seeing the World Cup running order as a sort of ranking. As only two objections were needed, Chaloner was out and Mark Cairns was brought in. It should be pointed out here that the Wales manager is Chris Robertson, an Australian, and if there is one sport that Aussies love better than any other it is pommie-bashing. (For American readers this means extreme prejudice towards people of British extraction. Think of the Boston Tea Party).

England's first pool match was against Wales and Stuart Courtney, chief exec of the SRA, discovered that the Wales team were not present 15 minutes before the 2pm kickoff. Those were the rules, he maintained, and he wanted to claim a walkover. Robertson told him he could have it if it was that important, to which Courtney said if Robertson could be such (expletive deleted) on selection, he could also be a stickler for the rules. Of course the match was played and England won. One small thing; there is no such 15 minute rule.

NOT MUCH MONEY IN SQUASH?

While we regard squash as the poor cousins of tennis, I just thought you'd like to know that Ahmed Barada has just splashed out $120,000 on a Mercedes SK and Peter Nicol bought his long-time girl friend a brand new car for her birthday. He also transported her and her mother to Cairo for a week. Mind you, this does pale into insignificance when you watch Greg Rusedski go home with over $1.3million for winning four matches in a fripperie called the Grand Slam Cup. That's more than he would have received for winning Wimbledon.

THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT

I couldn't make this up - or wouldn't dare make this up: the shortest match of the World Team championships was won by Tim Long of the USA. He beat Meshary Al-Sheetan 9-1, 9-1, 9-3 in 12 minutes. In the championships there were 86 ties, 258 matches, 903 games and 11,788 points scored which took a total of 11,078 minutes for an average of 43 minutes per match. By comparison, in the World Open the average match time was 58 minutes. Dontcha just love statistics? For the foregoing I must thank Adrian Battersby of Horizon Software who was responsible for the results system in Cairo for both tournaments as well as the Women's International. You can learn all about their systems at www.horizon-sport.com and on email infor@horizon-sport.com .

PITY THE POOR JOURNALIST

We scribes get a poor press. We make things up, invent quotes and take words out of context. And lord help us if we get a score wrong. But there is another side of the coin. Take Peter Nicol's refusal to play for Scotland: In Cairo we were told quite clearly that Nicol had definitely been offered substantial money to play for Scotland. This was refuted in the strongest terms by Pat Nicol, Peter's father, who said no money had been offered. Who do you believe? I have it on the best authority that Nicol and Heath, being in the top ten, were offered £350 ($540) plus $80 win bonus on every match. In addition, they would be given around $700 towards the airfare. As they were already in Cairo for the Open, this was clear payment. When this was offered to Neil Harvey, Nicol's manager, he said it wasn't enough.

The other theory is that Nicol would not play because the Scottish SRA refused to give him a grant from the lottery money. Many of the top English players have received grants of up to $20,000 from the English SRA from the huge World Performance grant given by the Lottery funds. This is to help them with the costs of coaching, trainers, physio's and other services which they would otherwise not be able to afford.

MEDICAL WONDERS NUMBER ONE

Jonah Barrington is not quite sure whether he will be playing in the Over 55 tournament in Aberdeen. His hip replacement was a whole new approach to that very common operation, so much so that major national newspapers are doing features on the ground-breaking method. Jonah is actually more concerned with the other part of the operation - the graft on to his achilles tendon. Doctors say this could take up to four years to complete.

MEDICAL WONDER NUMBER TWO

I was telling Irish World Class referee Jack Allen about the Amr Shabana, blood-on the-shirt incident when he was playing Paul Price in the semi-finals of the world teams. He put a bandaid on a cut knee and when that came off he was ordered off the court to have it dressed properly, forefeiting a game that he led 8-3. The rules say that a player can have as much time as he needs to dress the wound first time. But if he has to do it a second time, he loses the game. Jack Allen told me the trick is to carry some Saran wrap in your squash bag. The trouble with plasters is that they don't stick to sweaty legs, arms or faces, but Saran wrap sticks to itself and seals the wound. He tells me that this clever method is even being used by professional medics.

INSTANT REPORTS

Talking to Greg Hutchins, former Jansher manager and now owner of a string of hairdressers in Australia. He was promoting the Melbourne 2001 International squash festival and says the aim is to have the cutting edge of technology. For example, the referees will input the score to the scoreboard, which will be linked to computers in the press office and other sites which in turn will go straight onto the web. They will also have electronic lines - so that when the ball hits the tin or goes out, a buzzer will sound. The web site is: www.melb2001squash.com.au and the telephone is (613) 9682 2199.