Squash History
One Hundred and Thirty Years of Squash
For over 1000 years man has invented and enjoyed a variety of games played by hitting a ball with either a closed fist - as in "fives" or "bunch of fingers" - or with some form of bat or racket. Around the year 1148 the French played "le Paume", meaning "the palm of the hand", which developed into Jeu de Paume, Real Tennis, Royal Tennis or, if you play the sport, simply Tennis. At sometime in the early 19th century this obsession with rackets and balls spawned another variety of the sport in the unlikely birthplace of the Fleet Prison in London. The prisoners in "The Fleet", mainly debtors, took their exercise by hitting a ball against walls, of which there were many, with rackets and so started the game of "Rackets". Rackets progressed, by some strange route, to Harrow and other select English schools about 1820 and it was from this source that our own sport of Squash, or Squash Rackets, developed.
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(Compiled by Bill Murphy, Life Member, former Chief Executive and Ann Murphy, former Administration Manager)
Preface and Acknowledgements
Over 80 years of activity cannot be covered completely in the limited manner offered by any Annual Report and it would be appropriate if Squash New Zealand in the very early future commissioned a detailed history so that what has become a great New Zealand sport can be appropriately chronicled.
Nonetheless this hopefully gives a suitable interim snapshot of our dynamic game established in this country during the early twentieth century. It is arranged in four sections, being Personalities, Growth and Infrastructure, the Decades and Reflections.
Special acknowledgement is made of those personnel who wrote excellent contributions to the 50th Jubilee publication in 1988, which forms the basis of this update. These people being Squash New Zealand stalwarts and Life Members, (the late) Allen Johns, Don Green, Bryden Clarke, Murray Day and Michael Sumpter. Thanks also to Don Cotter, for his ever perceptive observations in viewing the sports evolution in New Zealand.
I Was There
On 23 November 1919 Herbert N Watson wrote from Palmerston North to his kiwi friend D.H Riddiford, then in England, on a series of matters, including golf and racing. He penned the letter having just returned from the New Zealand Cup in Christchurch where he had sailed by boat. He said he ‘did not turn a hair on the trip” thanks to having previously got rid of his ‘inside fat' by STRENUOUS SQUASH PLAYING.
This letter is in the 1998 publication ‘I Was There' a recording of dramatic first hand accounts of New Zealand history.
So is established possibly the first reference to squash being played in New Zealand, as it is known that Herbert Watson has his own private court at his home in Palmerston North.
It wasn't until the 1930's however that the sport began to evolve on a broader base.
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