Ref's Rule - July 2026

Last month, I finished with:

“Ask yourself, as player, how many unforced errors you have made against the number of “bad” decisions you consider the referee has made”.

One of the reasons I became involved as a referee was closely related to the sentence above.

As a young lad, I was asked to play pennants and as was the case at the time (and still is), I was put into a team and had the etiquette of squash pennants explained to me.

• Be there before the stated start time.
• If playing at your home courts, bring supper and liquid refreshments for yourself and your opponent.
• If you win, buy your opponent a drink of their choice.
• ...and by the way, you will have to Mark or Referee a match.

That was pretty much it. No mention of rules other than possibly marking requirements.

“You'll be okay, you'll pick up the rules as you go along!"

I soon found out there were rules, but these varied depending on who you listened to.

I was also encouraged to enter a tournament, so I had to find out what rules applied to that environment.

So, along I go to participate in my first tournament and I am sure I am getting a tough time from the referee. 'No Lets' and 'Strokes' against me, when I thought they should be 'Yes Lets' and 'Strokes to me'(according to my team-mates when I was playing pennants).

After the tournament, and having decided the referee didn’t know what he was doing, I decided to buy a rule book; a very small book at the time.

As I started to read through the rules it was becoming obvious that the referee did actually have some knowledge of the rules, and was most likely correct in their decision making process.

At the end of the rule book was an acknowledgement to those persons who had a hand in formulating the rules and updating them... and there in the list was the person who had refereed MY match!

I had to concede that their knowledge was greater than mine, and at that point I became determined to read and understand the rules.

So this started me on the path to become an accredited referee,and the rest is history (and that's another story).

My advice is for all players to read the rules so that you can enjoy the game and know when you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. It also helps to improve your game by understanding your obligations under the rules.

Rule of the Month

RULE 15.00 (Commonsense)

If you are unsure what the decision should be, the answer is 'Yes Let'.

Then go away after the match has finished, and research what at the answer should have been.

The Rules of Squash are free online.

Quote for the Month

“If you aim at nothing, you will hit it everytime.” - Anon.