JEDDAH, 1 July 2006 — Michael Harris likes football, but he likes squash too. He likes the sport so much that he’s become the British squash team coach.
Harris is in Jeddah now to participate along with his players from the United Kingdom in the reciprocal Saudi-British sport exchange. Both squads are getting trained twice a day for eight days at the King Fahd Costal City here.
The chosen Saudi squad members are: Ahmad Abu Riggah, Abdulaziz Al-Hazmi, Mussa Al-Hazmi, Abdullah Al-Asfour, Mohammed Al-Seif, Tahir Al-Bittayan, Ali Al-Saed and Hussain Al-Seif.
On the other hand, the British squad who came along with Harris are, Ben Hansford, Ben Rodgers, Nick Hopcroft, Hadley Neale, Ryan Whiteley and Freddie Possegger.
“The hospitality here has been always fascinating,” said Harris, who along with his team has come to the Kingdom three times in past exhanges. The Saudi team has visited the UK five times.
Training is the key element to improvements, says Harris. And because the squash season runs from September to April, summer becomes the best time for trainings and intensive trainings, he emphasized.
These young athletes are now heading back home tommorow. Some will go to continue trainings in Germany, while the rest will go also for trainings in Holland for the Dutch Junior Open Squash Championships in Amsterdam.
“I’ll go straight away to New Zealand after three weeks from now for the World Juniors Squash Championship,” said Harris.
After seeing one of his family member playing squash, Whiteley, 14, got interested and joined the field and had played locally and international such as in Germany. Both Whiteley and Possegger, 13, said that this experience was really fun considering it was the first time for them and for their friends to visit Saudi Arabia.
Al-Muwwalad said that this chance for both teams to meet and exchange experience.
“This meeting came just in time to help our national squad to prepare for upcoming events in the region,” said Al-Muwwalad.
Mossa Alhazmi, 15, was born in a family where four of his brothers played squash. Parents were very supportive and the time between training and studying was easily organized.
Al-Hazmi said that he had been learning a lot through these meetings and he has been seeing the improvement in his performance himself.
Mohammed Al-Seif, 18, said that he managed to play with this team in the UK three times and met them here twice, and each time he learns more.
“We just hope that we can meet the expectations of the people and to compete with the Arab countries, then Gulf then to play international,” he said.
