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11th July:
The third of our World Referees, after John
Massarella and Michael Riley, is Graham
Waters, the Canadian who is Director of the WSF's Referees & Rules
Committee, who Framboise met in New York ... |
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I JUST LOVE THE PEOPLE
“Thanks for your
little piece on me, but I’m not the Big Boss of referees at
all, I’m only the WSF Rules and Referees Committee director, that’s all”.
It’s with those words and a big smile that Graham Waters started
our little chat.
Well, he may not be the Big Boss, but he is not far from it, now, is he,
as the Committee is basically in charge of the International Referee
Program (in other words, they are nominating the International refs), and
the Rules Committee, in charge of modifying the rules when needed (it used
to be done every 4 years, but now is done only when the need occurs).
 Graham
is Canadian, and for years and years now, he has been involved in squash,
as a player of quite a reasonable standard to start with. And that’s how
he got into refereeing actually. He was playing a tournament where the
winner had to referee the next match.
“I thought I’d better look into it and learn how to do it right,” he
smiled…
And so he did. In '78, he passed the Canadian Officiating Certificate
Clinic, and that same year, was one of the first official referees the
Canadian Nationals ever had. In '84, he became the Chair of Officiating
Committee. In '86, in the Toulouse World Open (famous for the defeat of
legend Jahangir Khan after five years unbeaten), he was one of the five
referees to be nominated International Referee as they implemented the
International Referee Program.
And would you believe he doesn’t remember me… How is that possible, I
wonder…
Back to Graham. He has been to various World events for years now, and
with friend Rod Symington, they are organising Referee Clinics and
Conferences all over the world.
 “We
have organised them on each continent, apart from Antartica, of course…”
And why does he do all this???
“I love the game, I especially love the people. When you are at those
events, you always have somebody you know with whom you have a nice beer.
Take the TOC for example, everybody is here, as all organisations have
organised a meeting, PSA, WSF, WISPA… I can honestly say that I have
friends everywhere…”
“I think I chose refereeing because it allowed me be to be involved in
squash at the top level. And I was good at squash once… I even beat
Jonathan Power… aged 8!” |
 
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GRAHAM WATERS:
ALL TALENTS…
 No doubt I will talk about
Graham Waters in more depth before this week is over,
but the “Big Boss of Referees” (he is the highest referee in the world of
squash) doesn’t hesitate to get his hands dirty for the good of squash…
For the two last matches, we didn’t seem to have any court attendant,
probably due to the fact that it was starting to be pretty late. And the
white ball has got to be cleaned between the games, as it gets dirty.
So, our Graham didn’t say anything, and during the breaks, would pick up
the ball, clean it, and come back up near his troops, i.e. the referees.
I just find that great. No top dog, no big man, just a squash lover, here
to serve the game.
My hat to you, Sir.
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WORLD REFEREES
Jack Allen, Ireland
Ian Allanach, Scotland
Roy Gingell, Wales
Fahim Gul Khan, Pakistan
John Massarella, England
Tony Parker, England
Michael Riley, USA
Chris Sinclair, Australia
Graham Waters, Canada
Nasser Zahran, Egypt
Full WSF Referee
list for 2005
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from February
2005 |
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