It’s time for another Squash Story – and this time we caught up with one of Wales’ youngest Squash referees, Rhian Jones from Ynys Mon Squash Club to find out about what got her in to playing and then refereeing squash, how she balances the two things out and her thoughts on Squash being included as an olympic sport. Listen to the full interview, or read the transcript below.
Alex Jeffers:
Hello Rhian, thank you for agreeing to chat with me today. We got put in touch with you through Shaun Sullivan who said you had quite an interesting story to tell, that you were the potentially the youngest squash referee in Wales. We thought we’d have a chat with you about what it was that really got you into squash and how you ended up being a being a referee?
Rhian Jones:
Well, my dad had been playing for a while, and he used to go down to the local leisure centre and have a knock there, and he met Shaun and Paul Burrell, my coaches at the moment, and they were saying that they were going to start a junior club. So my dad just said, oh, we’ll get your numbers up and I’ll tell my daughter to come over and I’ve a have a, have a go see what she thinks. So that was back in 2019. And so it was every I think it was every Wednesday from that point on then that I’ve been going and I’ve really enjoyed it.
AJ:
Well, so I guess it was because of your dad the reason that you picked squash and not sort of another sport?
RJ:
Yeah, because I’ve never I’ve never really been interested in like, the usual like football, rugby. But then as soon as I got given like a racket and a ball and the court, I just thought, this is my thing.
AJ:
What about sort of refereeing the refereeing side of things? How did that come about?
RJ:
I used to go, so we have the tournament that goes on every single year. And my dad was in The Ynys Mon team and I just thought, I’ll go and support my dad whilst he was playing. Then one of them days, Sean asked me if I wanted to be a marker and learn how to mark. So I have something to do. Yes. So it progressed from there. And then I got taught the words to use but I’d have Sean to sit by me and help me with that; lets no letters and strokes and stuff like that, but I can now do it by myself. So I go down there when we play and I referee for them. Sean had told me that I could go for a course if I wanted to carry on and actually get better at it, so I decided to take the first level. I got through that and then I think a month later, then I did the second course, the first level I think it is, and I passed that. Then Sean told me I’m a qualified referee, so it’s exciting!
AJ:
Oh cool. Simple as that! Was it was it, you know, was it a fun course to do? Was it something enjoyable?
RJ:
Well, it’s like every single test you don’t get 100% every single time. So it did take me a few tries, but when I failed them, I could go back then and just see. “Okay. So I got this wrong. So I need to focus on that and need to develop on that.”
AJ:
Is it something that you’d recommend other people do if one, they like squash and two, if they like keeping an eye on the score and sort of bossing people about a bit.
RJ:
Yeah, when we go, I have one of my dad’s friends. He’s starting to referee, so I’m helping him out. So I’ll be his Shaun basically and sit by him and help him out.
AJ:
What’s it like refereeing your dad in squash?
RJ:
I’m a bossy boots with him because if he does something wrong, I’ll tell him to stay on call and be like, okay, you’ve done this wrong. Try something else. I’ll just stop getting strokes.
AJ:
I can imagine some sort of awkward conversations at the dinner table afterwards.
How do you balance refereeing and also playing squash. Are there times when you think, oh, I’d much rather be refereeing at this or I’d much rather be playing?
RJ:
Because I play about three times a week. I go to coaching with the adults on a Monday, junior coach on a Wednesday, and then I’ll play on a Wednesday afterwards then. But yeah, sometimes on Wednesdays I’ll be like, I don’t feel like playing. I’d rather just referee. But then I’d be like, but normally I will play and then referee. So it’s a bit of a balance because I enjoy doing both.
AJ:
That’s a nice split from one thing to the next but still being actively involved in it. But I suppose sometimes if you just can’t be bothered to get on court and pick up the racket, you can you still involved in it, but you’re not not quite so active.
Would you say you’ve got any really memorable moments or stories from refereeing or any big decisions that you’ve had to make in games or anything that anyone’s been quite upset about?
RJ:
Yeah. There’s been a few things that I’ve done, but I haven’t been doing it for long, so I don’t really have that much. But since getting into like more me doing the calls by myself, I’ve been because I’ve been like just on a court by myself and I get a bit worried, like, how do I know if it’s the right call? But I always get told I’m the referee. It’s my choice, basically. One time I was refereeing the second team, us and one of the guys kept on having foot faults. So every time I’d have to do a let, because nearly every time he’d have his foot on the line. But he wasn’t really happy with me afterwards. But since then he has improved, and he actually doesn’t have this whole foot in the box. So I think I’ve done something.
AJ:
Yeah, yeah. Oh, that’s pretty good, though, to enforce that. You can sort of see through your refereeing that you’re actually making someone a better player. I guess that’s pretty like a nice kind of nice feeling to have.
Do you want to do more squash refereeing. Would you be interested in moving more into the world of professional refereeing outside of the club?
RJ:
Well, my dad really wants me to do it because he’s always like, oh, you can go to this part, you can go to Egypt, you can go to this place. But because I’ve been telling them, I want to be a police officer and that’s why I have my own thing. So I’d rather do it as a hobby for just our club. And then get better from there, because I don’t really want to go all around the world, like just doing the same thing. But I really do enjoy just doing it as a bit of a hobby
AJ:
I get that, a lot of people say they don’t want to turn their their hobbies into their careers. They’d rather just do it as a hobby, something they enjoy. I know a lot of people, they do quite creative endeavors – drawing, painting, making stuff. And people say, oh, you should turn this into a career, you should open a shop, you should do this. And they just no, don’t want to do that. Just, just, you know, that’s my down time, my off.
What did you think or how did you feel when you found out that squash was getting recognized as an Olympic sport?
RJ:
I’m thinking, yeah, it’s quite exciting because it’s actually getting more people to see that, “oh, this is a good sport type thing, I didn’t know this was a sport. I’ll have a look at it.” So yeah, I think possibly that it will get more people interested and playing the sport because, here, there’s not many people that play it. And then my, my friends would be like, oh, it’s a stupid sport, but that’s what they think, really. But yeah, I’m pretty happy that it’s an Olympic sport instead of just the normal running throwing and those sort of things
AJ:
Yeah, yeah. I remember when the 2012 Olympics happened and I think it was that when they introduced handball. Yeah. It’s like massive in Scandinavian countries. Uh, and I remember watching at the time thinking, this looks like so much fun. Where can I play handball? Turns out not very many places. It’s a very obscure sport. And there weren’t as many people as me who got quite caught up in it as me. But I feel like, yeah, the sort of the announcement that squash is going to be in the Olympics, it made the news. It got people talking about squash. I think when people start seeing it more like because people watch the Olympics now, they’ll watch like they watch any other sport. I think yeah It’d be good to see more people get into squash off the back of that.
Are there any big games or tournaments that you’re looking forward to either watching, playing or refereeing?
RJ:
I wouldn’t think so, really, because, well, we don’t really get out of our club, but it would be nice to go back to the Manchester Open with my dad which was really good. So I’d like to go to that again and go to other places to watch it. You just get an overall feeling of like the sensation of going to watch bigger players doing what you do on a Wednesday night
AJ:
Thanks for having a chat and hopefully we’ll speak sometime soon.
