The History of Squash
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.
In 1864 the first four Squash courts were constructed at the school and Squash was officially founded as a sport in its own right. The first professional Squash Championship was held in 1920 in England.
The United States Squash Racquets Association (USSRA) was founded in 1907 and it was in that year also that the first recognised National Championship for Squash in any country was held.
Squash played with a hard ball on an 18½ feet wide court was the only form of the sport played in the USA until the mid-1980s, but then growing exposure to the “International” game resulted in some 21 feet wide courts being built and the international, “soft”, ball being used on both the wide and narrow courts.
Squash is played in 130 countries, on 47000 courts, and the World Squash Federation now has 116 Squash playing National Associations in membership. The Federation leads its Member Nations in programmes for the development of the sport and is currently working with the IOC towards the target of having Squash included as a sport on the programme of the Olympic Games in the year 2008.
by Ted Wallbutton of the WSF
