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 FRAM'S
CORNER #159
Everything you never knew you needed to know about the Squash
World
2nd January 2012 |
HOWARD HARDING,
or the ART OF MAKING US LOOK GOOD
by Framboise Gommendy
 You
readers may have heard of Steve Cubbins or myself, as our name
appears quite logically regularly on this site. You may have
read the name of a few other journalists, but I bet very few of
you actually know of Howard Harding.
Well, that's the point of his work. Not to be known.
Howard chose to do the ingrate job of "serving the soup" for the
rest of the medias, as we say in French. As in, he provides the
journalists in the whole world with articles, full of dates,
facts, stats, information, results, that help writers to adapt
them to their liking (no credit due) to help promoting the sport
everywhere.
Not
only that, but he also has the most up to date, complete, user
friendly stats website in the world. It's called SquashInfo.com.
We all depends on his database, and should he stop updating it,
the world of squash would be data-less, as simple as that.
Relentlessly, he sends us info sheets with precious stats, facts
like "Ashour becomes the first player since Pakistan's
legendary Jansher Khan in the mid-nineties to make the final of
every event in which he competed in a calendar year."
yeah,
I knew that....
 So, we write our own reports,
and look like we know something about squash. I fooled most of
people in thinking I know
I'm talking about,
now you know the
secret. 95% of the facts we state,
well, are Howard's based.
From a personal point of
view, when I
arrived on the Press Scene in 2004, Howard didn't join
some of my "colleagues" - that I
came to call
the Dinosaurs Pack, and who
made my life hell for
about two years. Howard never played that childish and heartless
game. He was always kind, fair, polite, helpful, funny and
efficient.
He grew to become a friend. And a precious one.
Recently, the proliferation of new medias have fooled a few
organisations into believing that Howard's work was not that
important,
and that money could
be saved by not employing him anymore.
Well, my lovely French short fuse would led me to comment, "you
IDIOTS". But as I have now learned the British Tact, I will
simply state, "well, that was probably not the most clever of
decisions".
 When
I see how Howard's work is undervalued and taken for granted, I
cannot not see the parallel with the way SquashSite is being
perceived by some.... And it hurts.
By all means, invest in new techniques of communication. By all
means, improve the Sport and try and develop the audience by all
possible means. Make the game more attractive to the masses, yes
please. Recruit new writers, yes, yes, yes.
But as the Africans
say "don't kick away the boat that made you cross the river".
Don't get rid of your past to chase after an hypothetical
future. Build from it. On it. With it.
Howard, I've been telling you for years, you are my Bible. You
are a wonderful person, and squash is a better place for having
you.
Merci. |
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"L'EQUIPE' Thanks Howard
 "Without Howard Harding support, Squash probably wouldn't occupy
the place it now has in the French Press.
When I was in charge of squash for l'Equipe a few years ago, I
benefitted with Howard's information to feed my articles.
I asked Howard to add a few of l'Equipe.fr journalists, and to
my delight, squash results started to appear on the site... Well,
with over 2 millions visitors a day helps to make a discipline
known, now, doesn't it...
Without Howard infos, no news on the site...
But the most important was the diversity of the articles he sent
us. Majors of course, but small as well. As I've been following
many sports, I can tell you that very few offer such a quality
of service.
When Squash dreams of an Olympic Status, Howard is a splendid
asset for this amazing sport.
Merci Howard.
L'Equipe, L'Equipe.fr, Equida TV editor
"La place du squash dans les médias
français ne serait sans doute pas ce qu'elle est aujourd'hui
sans le travail d'Howard. Lorsque je me suis occupé du squash à
L'Equipe il y a quelques années, j'ai bénéficié de ses
nombreuses informations pour nourrir mes papiers.
Très vite, après avoir ajouté quelques mails de lequipe.fr sur
la liste d'Howard, j'ai eu le plaisir de découvrir régulièrement
les résultats des tournois sur le site... Avec près de 2
millions de visiteurs par jour, ça aide incontestablement une
discipline à se faire connaître.
Et sans les communiqués d'Howard, pas de news sur le site. Mais
le plus épatant était de constater, la richesse et la diversité
des informations. Les grands tournois bien sûr mais aussi des
plus petits. Pour avoir suivi de nombreuses disciplines, croyez
moi, peu disposent d'un "service" de la qualité de celui
d'Howard.
A l'heure où le squash rêve d'un destin olympique,
Howard Harding est une grande richesse pour ce magnifique sport.
Merci Howard !" |
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A New Year’s Day Statement
In Support Of Howard Harding
by Rob Dinerman for DailySquashReport.com
 At a time when the squash world’s need
to have its events promoted, its players’ achievements
publicized and its overall exposure maximized in the larger
sports and world media has never been greater (read “Olympic
Bid”), the disrespectful treatment that its foremost proponent
Howard Harding has been receiving of late has been both highly
disappointing and sadly self-defeating.
For years Harding did a remarkable job of promptly producing
summaries of each day’s tournament play on behalf of the men’s
pro tour (the Professional Squash Association, or PSA), the
women’s pro tour (the Women’s Squash Association, or WSA, which
changed its name from WISPA in 2011) and the European Squash
Federation (ESF).
His daily tournament coverage reports, always
issued within hours after each day’s last match had ended
(beginning with the qualifying and going straight through the
final), were thorough, informative and entertaining, containing
just the right complement of historical perspective and
continuity, and the reliability level with which his write-ups
were issued became such that the DailySquashReport.com site for
which I write swiftly grew to depend on them, and on him, as a
trustworthy source and staple of our coverage. DSR’s Publisher
Ted Gross eloquently expressed this phenomenon in his May 1st
one-year-anniversary statement when he saluted Harding and his
contribution to squash reporting as “the straw that stirs the
drink.”
Ever since the WSA decided to discontinue its relationship with
Harding a year and a half ago in favor of handling the reporting
in-house, there has been a commensurate drop in the tour’s
exposure quotient and profile; at present, there is daily
coverage (by Harding) of all the PSA events while the WSA often
issues only one tournament write-up, disseminated after the
event has ended.
Now we have just learned that the ESF has informed Harding (who
had been covering their league matches and junior tournaments,
pieces that we at DSR have frequently linked to) that they are
terminating their relationship, having decided to do without a
public-relations service from 2013 onwards.
These organizations
need MORE of the kind of coverage that Harding so expertly
provides, not less. They are shooting themselves in the foot,
and the wounds their shortsightedness is thereby inflicting are
to both themselves and the sport as a whole as it seeks
inclusion in the 2020 Olympic Games.
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THANKS HOWARD
(MADRID WORLDS 2007)...
This event scared me to death I must say, because having the
responsibility of an World Event as a reporter in a second
language/photographer is bad enough, but when you add webmastering
on top, you've find yourself with a very scared fat frog....
 But
thank God, THANK GOD for Howard Harding.
You may see Howard's name here and there on SquashSite, but unless
you are press related, you may not realise the stunning job that
that man does for us, press, and for squash in general.
Not only he's running the most extensive, comprehensive and
user-friendly database on players stats with his SquashInfo
site, he serves all the majors governing bodies with news all over
the world, from the biggest event to the smallest, offers us press
all the Head to Heads we can think of, who beat so and so in the
first round of the quals in Gronlwoland in 1532, arranges stories
for the All Mighty Written Press, facilitates contacts between
players and journalists, etc, etc. And in a Press Room? Invaluable.
Basically, the difference between order, easy work, and complete
chaos really!
 But
on this event, he went a step further, by getting me written quotes
from the players, which basically allowed me to work on the site
while he was typing. Not to mention feeding us with all the correct
names, stories, protocol, etc.
In other words, couldn't have done it without him here. As pure and
simple as that. Thanks to the organisation for having flown him
here. That was a great move. |
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