Tom Hendry (previous Club Secretary) remembers the year...

The GB Veterans Squash Club was actually founded on the 19th December 1963 when eight enthusiastic veterans – including Messrs Dobbin, Phillips, Walrond, Hooper, Rowlands, Fisk together with Colonel Adye and Commander Pellew – met under the temporary chairmanship of, the then Secretary of the SRA, John Horry at the RAF Club in Piccadilly.

However, to all intents and purposes, the first active year for the new club was 1964 when the first Committee meeting reported 35 members and Mr Noel Simmons (who is still alive) was invited to join the Committee. Club Rules were drawn up, a Club tie designed and the first of many ‘friendly’ matches arranged.

This was the year of Mary Quant and Beatlemania, the Great Train Robbery trial, and the deaths of Nehru, Ian Fleming and Harpo Marx. It was also a year that saw Harold Wilson win a Labour victory (albeit only by 4 seats!) in an autumn General Election as well as Winston Churchill’s final departure from the House of Commons. There were Hindu-Muslim riots in Calcutta, wars in Vietnam and Cyprus and Nelson Mandela was jailed for life for treason. In sport, Cassius Clay (later Mohammed Ali) stormed to fame by beating Sonny Liston for the World Heavyweight boxing title, whilst the Tokyo Olympics saw gold medals for Mary Rand, Lyn Davies, Ken Matthews and Ann Packer. Oh…. and a three course dinner at the Lansdowne Club cost 7/6p (35p)!

In squash, in 1964-5, Jeremy Lyon (Essex) reached the semi-final of the Amateur Championship losing to a young man called Geoff Hunt whilst another young man, Jonah Barrington lost in the second round in his first appearance. Among modern day ‘vets’ in the Amateur were Henry McIntosh (Gloucs), Nigel Faulks (Surrey), Tom Hendry (Surrey), Mike Breckon (Sussex), John Skinner (Surrey), Chris Stahl (Surrey), Tony Breakwell (Warks), Tony Gathercole (Surrey) and Brian Wise (Middlx). Lyon, Gathercole and Skinner were all regular members of the England team at this time.

Veterans’ squash had only recently emerged. In the first Open Veterans Championship, Alan Seymour-Haydon beat Derek Corbett, whilst in the more established Amateur Vets Seymour-Haydon beat Aeneas Perkins – all were founder members of the GB Vets. In the services, Robin Bawtree won the Royal Navy singles; Mike Perkins was runner-up in the Army singles (an event he won many times) and John Skinner won the Civil Service…and in the Under 16 Evans Cup, Chris Orriss beat Stuart Courtney!!

1964 was a year of change nationally and globally. It was also, in many ways, the take-off point for a revolution in squash with the rapid rise to prominence of Jonah Barrington and the transformation of the image and impact of the sport throughout the world with an explosion of the number of clubs and courts through the 1970s. In this year, Toddy Berman was in South Africa and Lance Kinder had yet to take the game up! Many of our current members were still at school, whilst many of our more mature members were at their competitive peaks. In 1964, the game was still largely an amateur sport dominated by the public schools, Oxbridge and the services, with only a few dedicated, impoverished professionals.

In the last forty years, the sport has transformed itself and despite falling back from the boom of the 1980s is still played by millions across over 100 countries worldwide. In those forty years, the GB Veterans Club has continued to expand from its early beginnings and today flourishes with over 600 members many of whom are active into their seventies or eighties!

Our Club Championships were introduced in 1981 – with Tony Gathercole (now a Vice-President) and Peter Gracie winning the Over 45 and Over 55 Singles respectively. Gradually, over the years, we have expanded the number of age categories (to include Over 70 singles in 1993, and Over 75 Singles in 2001) and Doubles from 1984 when Mike Perkins and John Woodliffe won the inaugural Over 45 event! The Club has sent teams across the world and hosted other Vets teams from throughout the world. It has become the watchword for the continuance of friendly, competitive squash into the more ‘mature’ years.

Forty years on, we certainly owe much to those few, those ‘gallant few’, who met at the Royal Air Force Club on that cold December night in 1963.