BME Sport Swansea Squash & Racketball Taster Sessions.

BME Sport Swansea is a relatively new initiative and is part of BME Sport Cymru

With at present four project officers in post covering Swansea, Cardiff, Newport and North Wales and

headed by project manager Rajma Begum.

“The aim of the project is to make a long-term sustainable difference to the inclusion of all under-

represented BME communities in sport and physical activity, so as to improve the long-term

opportunities and health outcomes of those communities.” It has 3 main objectives: Increasing participation, building capacity and tackling inequality.

The squash taster session project for the Swansea

area was put together through a working

partnership between BME Sport Swansea project

officer Mohammed Basit (Right Picture), Squash

Wales Development Officer Pete Crook (Left

Picture), and Nigel Rees Manager at Swansea

Squash & Tennis Club. (Centre Picture),

The squash taster session were organised for February over a four week period, Swansea

Squash & Tennis club offered 2 courts for 2 hours on Tuesdays Free of charge (fantastic club

support)

Club Coach Saqib Meer also offering his services and support for all four sessions.

It was also fantastic to see the

support to try Squash &

Racketball from the BME

Swansea community we had a

diverse age group attending and

personally it was great to see

some females taking part. The

sessions grew weekly with

between 12 and 20 participant’s

attending, all willing and

enthusiastic.

We planned for the first 3 weeks to take Squash based sessions, taking all participants through

the basics whilst the final week we ran a Racketball session, easier to play for beginners than

Squash this gave us the opportunity to have a mini tournament ensuring longer rallies where

everyone could achieve a decent standard leading to some great competitive matches.

The sessions started with the obligatory warm up with stretches. Coach Saqib Meer ensuring

the participants held good form.

As well as just taking the sessions we tried to impart some knowledge on the importance of

warm ups/downs and stretching, it was gratifying find out the participants had a good basic

understanding with all being involved or having been involved in various sports before.

The next item on the agenda was to teach the correct grip, swing and stance Coach Saqib Meer

explanation and demonstration of all aspects was excellent.

We then managed to get everyone to hit through the line of the ball achieving a basic length

shot, and here we had a bit of fun trying to stop the male participants trying to remove the

plaster from the front wall by blasting the shot, whilst the ladies would show finesse and

control to achieve the target showing weight of shot is everything.

With the basic understanding that the ball will go where the racket ends, we had again great fun

teaching the serve and serve return and with a few attempts everyone achieved their target area.

We ended the sessions with a few fun games here the participants would try to put everything

they had been taught into practice, we had some really competitive matches and great to see

BME Sport Swansea project officer Mohammed Basit giving his all at every session.

“I have a passion for introducing our great sport and delivering squash taster sessions to new

communities, a big part of making the sessions a success is to keep them FUN the humor the

BME community took to the sessions, their willingness to listen and participate and succeed

was second to none and made my job easy, working with BME Sport Swansea project officer

Mohammed Basit was an absolute pleasure his passion and enthusiasm to help his community

get involved in sport is infectious he is a credit to both BME Sport Cymru and the community,

Massive thankyou to Nigel Rees, Saqib Meer and Swansea Squash & Tennis club without their help

these taster sessions would not of been possible. Squash Wales are looking forward to working with the

other regions BME Sport Officers to deliver similar sessions in the near future”.

Any feedback on the News letter to West Wales Development officer

petercrook23@hotmail.com or NGB Squash Wales office 03003003121