Steven

Over 50 years ago in 1972, I turned professional in squash and started the Barbara Wall School of Squash with the aim of encouraging children to take up the game.  I ran the main sessions at the Carine Glades Squash Academy in the northern suburbs of Perth.  On Saturday night I reconnected with one of my pupils at the time, Steven Durbridge and also met his lovely wife Gemma.  Steve's dad John used to turn up every Saturday and help me with the classes.  We ran 5 sessions throughout the day and believe me it was full on.  Steve was just a tiny 5 year old when I started out there and hardly able to hold a racket.  He was desperate to join in so his dad cut a full size racket right down so he could manage it.  Unbeknown to everyone, during the week, little Steve was jumping over his back fence and going into the courts and practising.  He used to practise nearly every day and in particular practise his serve by lobbing it high on the front wall and landing it in a bucket next to the back wall of the court.  Now bear with me, this is a great story.  When he was only 9 and still very tiny, he entered into the under 11 boys championship in the Coca-Cola Junior Championship and won.  Of course he had perfected his lob serve and the other kids had no idea how to deal with it.  The photo in the first extra shows him receiving his trophy for the event.  This was to be the first of many including winning the Junior State Title and being accepted into the AIS and being coached by squash legends, Heather McKay and Geoff Hunt.  When I left WA in 1976 to head overseas to play squash in the UK, I never returned to WA to live until now and lost touch with the WA Squash scene to a certain extent.  In 1984 when I returned to England to watch the British Open, I had the great thrill of bumping into Steve at the Brighton Squash Centre.  You could have knocked me over with a feather.  The little boy in the extra was in Britain to compete in the junior British Open Title and representing Australia.  He now towered over me and politely met me with a "Hello Miss Wall" :) It is honestly one of the highlights of my life in squash and I was delighted to be able to tell the story at a big reunion of squashies at the Royal Kings Park Squash Centre at Next Gen over the weekend.  By the way, that's Steve's dad John standing at the back of one of our group shots.  Sadly John has passed away, but I know how much he and his wife Robyn put into junior squash for decades and I was so happy I could tell this story to so many people in honour of John.  By the way, the last extra is a photo that was sent to me by Lisa Young another one of my pupils from all that time ago.  Lisa came up and introduced herself to me at the function and it just gave me goose bumps.  Her Mum Helen was a great tennis and squash player in WA and one of the people I used to look up to as a junior.  So many wonderful memories have come flooding back - there's nothing like being in a room full of "Squashies".