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SQUASH
IN SARAWAK
A Brief History 1976 - 1997
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The Early Days by Ken Goh
Once upon a time there was only one squash court in the
Sarawak Club back in 1976 and a lot of Hashim Khan and Geoff Hunt wannabes
and Yours Sincerely were one of them.
The floor of the court was entirely made of dark planks and the squash
ball was black. Guess what happened when you tried to keep eyes on ball?
You were only guided by the yellow dot. It was a sweaty game but it was
fun. Altogether there were about twenty keen players including the ladies.
All matches were played only on best of three sets and one would be lucky
to get one game in the whole afternoon!
In 1978, a second squash court was built but somehow it was six inches
wider. This time the floor was slightly lighter in colour. In spite of
the different and wrong dimension of the court, the squash population started
to increase.
There were many social competitions being held at the Club and the Sarawak
Club Team almost always won the many friendly games because visitors were
always ushered into the new court and would find their shots somehow not
quite the same. Six inches made a hell of of difference! Until the courts
were demolished, it was one of the best-kept secrets among the Club players.
Those were the days when the booze was cheap and the food was good; squash
was simply squash and the racquets weighed a ton!
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The
Birth of SRAS - Is it a drink; is it a fruit?
The Squash Racquets Association fo Sarawak (SRAS) was registered
in 1977. As a fledging body, SRAS received nogrant from the government.
It was very dfficult to explain to the then State's sports authority that
we were not an organisation promoting orange squash drinking competition.
The actovities of SRAS were mostly confined to Club competitions. There
was no overseas competition until 1985 when suddenly Sarawak Squash began
to make news. In that year, Emma Goh, age 14 years, became the Malaysian
Under-15 Champion and was the runners-up in the Hong Kong Junior Tournament
in the same age category. Ever since then there was no looking back. |
From
SRAS to SRAM
Sarawak became a full affliate of the Squash Racquets Association
of Malaysia sometime in the 1990's. These are vintage years for Sarawak.
The late Audrey Smith became the Under-19 Champion in 1995. Mohamad Azlan
Iskandar went further by becoming the youngest Under-15 Champion in the
Scottish Junior Open competition in 1995 and 1996. Since then, Azlan has
won the Malaysian Junior Open Under-19 title in 1997 and also the Asian
Under-16 title.
Into the New Millenium
There are many courts now and also many Jansher Khan and
the Martins siblings wannabes in Sarawak. This time it it the real thing.
It is achievable. Sarawak Boleh! Squash pun Boleh! |
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