World Squash Day 2011

Growing female participation is the focus of this year's World Squash Day, which will take place on Saturday 5th November.

The organisers usually try to theme the event or tie it in with some other campaign, and this year they've wisely given themselves the best shot at decent press coverage by holding it on Women's World Open finals day ...

WSF Chief Executive Andrew Shelley said in support of the initiative:

"Female participation is a very important ingredient for every sport and squash is no exception. Squash has a long and varied history of junior and adult female participation and indeed competition dating back more than 100 years, and is such an ideal sport for women and girls who want to have fun and keep fit."

As a former successful head of WISPA (the women's tour body) Shelley should have plenty of ideas about how to exploit the best assets of the elite game to boost grassroots participation.

The World Squash Day website will feature events taking place around the world (though at the time of writing it needs more work!), so if you're planning something at your club please upload your details/photos.

And this week's caption competition ...

Speaking of promoting the women's game ... I notice the Dread Sports Series tournament is currently taking place in Washington DC. You can see the poster here (left).

Pretty dramatic, don't you think?

More tasteful than the 2007 Toronto Open effort, (below left), artwork I doubt Shelley and the rest of the WSD organisers will be pulling out on November 5th.

I found some follow up on this image on an advertising website: arguments for and against etc. - you can read the sweaty-palmed comments here.

You can find links to previous World Squash Days in my preview articles:

World Squash Day 2009
World Squash Day 2008
World Squash Day 2007

World Squash Day 2011