Chronicle Editor
Brandon Moyo, Sports Reporter
SPORT is one thing that has roots in all the four corners of the world.
It all began somewhere. All the sports have a place where they were pioneered and it is a proud moment to be the first to do something.
If you ask where football or cricket were first played, you will get different responses depending on whom you ask and where they are from. There is one sport that has been rising among the ranks in Zimbabwe and that is squash.
Just like all the sports, squash started somewhere and found its way into Zimbabwe. Two Zimbabwean cities, today, boast of being the pioneers of the sport in the Southern African region.
The City of Kings and Queens, Bulawayo and the Sunshine City, Harare are where it all began in the country and on a larger scale, Southern Africa.
The sport of squash has been played in Zimbabwe for over a century, dating back to 1898 when the first court was built at the Bulawayo Club. This was not just a first of its kind in Zimbabwe, but a first of its kind in the Southern African region.
Bulawayo pioneered squash in the region and decades later in 1932, hosted the first inter-town tournament between Harare (then Salisbury) and Bulawayo and also in the same year, the first national men’s championship was held in Bulawayo as well.
Boasting of having the first court and hosting the first national championships, the sport then moved to the capital after the construction of a court at Harare Sports Club in 1974 and a record number of spectators were received.
A total of 850 people watched the match between seven-time world champion, Geoff Hunt from Australia and Jonah Barrington from Ireland. This is believed to be the largest spectator capacity of any permanent court in the world.
In the late 1970s, Harare Sports Club, which boasts an eight-court complex headed by an international glass backed court, became part of the world’s professional circuit.
Since then, squash has been on an upward trajectory in Zimbabwe and has become an integral part of the country’s sporting heritage with over 160 courts in use nationwide. Apart from the first couple of courts, Zimbabwe is also home to an iconic venue.
The Prince’s Court in the capital, which is also one of the oldest in the region, was played on by the Prince of Wales when he visited, hence named before him. Back in the days, Zimbabwe was kept on the map by the likes of Stuart Hailstone and Trevor Wilkinson.
Today, there is a new generation of heroes who will keep flying the Zimbabwe flag up high on the global stage. Two of the squash talents emerging from Zimbabwe at the moment are teenagers, Ryan Gwidzima and Brayden Raynars who, recently, represented Zimbabwe at the 2023 World Junior Squash Championships in Australia.
As a show of how the sport is valuable in the country, last year, Zimbabwe successfully hosted the 2022 Senior Squash Championships in Bulawayo and this year as part of its growth, pioneered, alongside the Bulawayo City Council (BCC) the City Sports Economy.
The initiative between the Squash Rackets Association of Zimbabwe (SRAZ) and BCC will go a long way in putting the spot at the apex where it belongs. —- Follow on Twitter @brandon_malvin
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