Nanaimo Squash Club

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Captain Backhand Returns!
The Lunch Crowd

The noble art of squash is a rather superior game, I’m sure you’ll agree, and those who play, with one or two exceptions, (Jonathan Power, get a hair cut!) represent the very best that our society has to offer. Those of us who play at lunchtime have a tendency to view ourselves as being part of a rather more exclusive club. A club within a club, you might say. It’s nothing formal, just an unspoken recognition between us lunchtime chaps that we share a responsibility to uphold the very finest values of the game, both on and off the court.

It’s hard to put one’s finger on it with out giving offence to those patrons of the evening shift who huff, puff and curse their way through their games before stampeding to the bar. Fine chaps one and all and I am proud to count a number of them as my friends. Indeed on occasion one of our chaps has been dispatched to the evening shift as something of an ambassador…building bridges, boosting morale…that sort of thing. I myself have been seen propping up the bar, sipping reluctantly on a “beer” and generally trying to “fit in.”

Perhaps there has been no better example of a lunchtime chap than that most gentlemanly of gentlemen, Charles Roach, whose absence from the club through injury is keenly felt by his many friends and admirers. It was his habit to step on court attired in a particularly fine smoking jacket, sipping on a dry martini and drawing deeply from a rare Cuban cigar. A rigorous warm up would ensue and then, having downed his martini and placed cigar in ash tray, his personal valet would appear to remove said jacket, revealing the requisite all white uniform, neatly starched and ironed.

"Perhaps there has been no better example of a lunchtime chap than that most gentlemanly of gentlemen, Charles Roach..."

His on court behavior was, if you’ll excuse the pun, beyond reproach. In the ten years that it was been my privilege to play him, not once did he display a flicker of emotion despite having to endure more than the occasional loss! On only one occasion when, having impaled his groin with his jammed racquet, did I noticed the beginning of a tear forming in his eye, only for Roach to exclaim, “damn these bright lights…sorry old chap.”

That’s the spirit that embodies the “Lunchtime Club” and one that I’m sure you will all aspire to. We do accept the occasional new member, subject to the usual character references and criminal record checks! Pip Pip!

Sincerly,
Captain Backhand

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