The Rise, Fall and Future of Squash

A mini documentary on the changes to squash over the last 40 years.

[tensor]

good effort. It's interesting. The rush to play squash back in the 70's 80's was (as I saw it and I was involved at that time) mainly men aged 20-40 .. I saw very little evidence of school aged children taking up the sport, yet the emphasis today is the complete reverse of that .. there is very little drive towards adults and all the energies seem to be aimed at school aged. I guess the 20-40 age group are tron towards other sportlike activities like gyms, running regimes etc. I don't know but it feels very different this time around.

[timinri]

Call me crazy, I think Squash has grown in the USA. The number of colleges sporting squash has grown a lot. And new clubs are popping all over the place, including my hometown YMCA, 7 court facility with doubles.

[monalo_io]

Need a Netflix doc to get things going?

[trinerd]

The title is misleading. This just covers England. It makes it seem as if this is about the sport in general. Champion's theory on participation drop from 2019 to 2019 "because the sport is more global"..like, really?

[pjkammer]

What rubs me the wrong way is the rare times you see squash in pop culture, it's clear no one involved had ever seen squash played.

[stevehughes]

A British perspective. However the game took off for people in Aussie and NZ in the early to mid '60s with Ken Hiscoe(Aust) winning the British Amateur title in '63, that saw huge growth for the sport on both sides of the Tasman, and then Geoff Hunt(Aust) winning the first World Amateur Championship in Melbourne in '67. Barrington however lead the charge with a world pro circuit and a players association in the '70s.

[cscoetzee]

Not to mention the effects of pickleball and padel.

[fcpcb]

Easy access to courts would be the key to revive squash. In Canada I don't see that is possible anymore as almost all the private gyms have been converting squash courts to workout spaces. Tennis have public courts outside but squash is almost exclusive to private clubs now. Even in there the level of participation is dropping each year. And now we have pickleball which took a big chunk of older squash community. I love squash but sadly I don't see much future for it here in Canada unless government starts to build public courts.

[mcc]

Councils take so much in terms of rates and tax that it is no surprise that businesses trying to survive replaced courts with other more popular means to earn revenue

[ruprt]

Nice doco, I think squash is definitely a ´future´ sport now that its shaken off the shackles of elitism. Futuristic glass courts of different colours that can be easily repurposed for other activities would help. The main issue is the cost/value of the space it takes up, if this can be solved by making use of courts in off peak times, that would help.

[martincarter]

Is the link between the elite game and participation so strong anymore - padel ball participation is growing hugely but does it even have a professional game

[jackieking]

Its expensive.. End of story. Great game.... sweat a lot and never have far to go to collect the ball ( unless its jambed in the lights ) but who can afford it? Certainly not this pensioner. I get to play a bit of badminton for half the price of squash and even that is getting too much.

[snorlaxsam]

China is now picking up squash, watch how they will be the kryptonite of the Egyptians, their proven track record in Olympics, good luck trying to deny that

[shananarocks]

Perhaps time for World Squash Federation to come up with a new squash ball material that do not need to warm up. With advance in material science, I believe this is doable and we would see less time being wasted on court especially during competition and air time.

[jonwoolf]

Good idea for documentary…pretty boring though if I’m honest. Get more guys like Mustafa Asal…better social media.