Be Excellent To Each Other

Anyone here play the ultimate 80's sport, Squash?

Mrs Chinny and I have taken it up. We're still only knocking the ball around for fun but the racquets at the sports centre are not as good as the ones we had on holiday. So if we were to buy some, which ones should we buy? Preferably cheap?

Also, balls. Which balls to use. We've been using the ones with the yellow dots (which I think are the slowest) but we find them quite hard going. Is there a better ball to use.

Cheers.

Red ball, man - more bouncy, much more the thing when you're starting out - faster, which sounds harder but actually means you have longer to get to it.

I haven't played for years, but had a Wilson racket that served (oh ho) me well - and they seem to have come down in price since then, so I'm sure you'd get something pretty serviceable even for £20-30, but obviously I'm happy for someone to disagree completely with me.

Edit - forgot about the blue ball http://squashclub.org/main/e-lessons/lessons/beginner_lessons/lesson1.shtml. Still, the red would probably do pretty well too.

Cheers. The FAQ's on that site look fascinating and I'll go through them later. One thing I did note is that the FAQ highly recommends eye protection. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Hmm - not something I ever used, nor was it ever used at school where a lot of squash was played (that would be in the 80s, mind). I suspect that's a modern health and safety type thing, and I'd file it under "potentially useful but, really, unlikely to be needed". Being hit in the eye by a squash ball is really going to hurt and perhaps do damage, but if you're paying attention and not facing your opponent as they swing, you're unlikely to cop it; once the ball's come off a wall it's really not travelling quickly enough to hurt much.

I'm lazy, so I use reds. I've been hit by my mate's racquet far more often than by the ball, so I wouldn't worry about eye protectors.

£20 will easily get you a perfectly serviceable racquet.

Someone hit me in eye with a squash ball. I was in the viewing gallery but the ball was aimed to hit someone else. Bloody hurt.

I only played squash for the first time in 15 years last week. I did abit at school. The last person I ever played with at school now kicks oddly shaped balls over big posts for England. Ironically the only time I didn't think he was an arrogant tosser was when I played squash with him. I remember thinking "you'll make a good PE teacher" as he was helping me improve my game.

The sports centre only has yellow by the look of it. I'll see what our local sports shop has (with the closing down sale that has been going on for the last 3 years).

I quite liked the racquets the hotel had as they had bigger heads (fnurk!), the ones we hired today were lighter but hard work.

Weird, I only remarked to my missus the other day how I've never heard of anyone who plays squash for years. I played a bit when I was a kid but soon found out that I was just as hopeless at it as I am at every other ball sport ever invented.

I haven't read this thread properly so am only going by the title, but I'd choose Jahinger Khan if I were you.

Died of bad Aids apparently:

Ask Kern. But he's stateside atm, so yeah.