Can you make a living from squash?

Posted 12:19 17 February 2010 in Being a professional squash player

Can you make a living from playing squash?

Chris Fullers Professional Squash Blog

“But can you really make a living from playing squash?” This is definitely the question I and most squash players get asked most often and it usually comes only seconds after introducing myself and what I do.

The answer I give is that at the moment I can (just about)! Don’t get me wrong I am by no means at football or tennis player status but my income comes from playing squash full time, which along with careful planning allows me to scrape through!

I am very lucky in that I have lottery funding from England Squash and Racketball which provides me with a small monthly wage (personal athlete allowance) and helps hugely with paying for tournament expenses (tournament allowance). I am also very lucky in that I am well supported by equipment sponsors including Dunlop, Asics and Maxim Sports Nutrition as well as Guy Salmon Jaguar who have helped myself and the Kenilworth Club hugely for a long time now.

The rest of my income comes from a combination of 2 things Tournament Winnings (career earnings at present total 29 Euros) and more importantly for me and most young professionals Leagues.

Unlike in most sports such as Football or Rugby Squash players can play for many different teams in many different leagues. A parallel in Cricket to say Andrew Flintoff who next season will be representing both Lancashire in England and The Chennai Super Kings in the IPL (or at least I like to think of them as similar)! This way I can travel round both England and Europe playing for many different teams and being lucky enough to be paid for it.

I represent Heswall in North West counties on a Tuesday night The Hallamshire in Yorkshire League (Wednesdays) and Bremen in German League and Vienna in Austrian league on the odd weekend. I am also in the Duffield Premier League squad but as yet have not been picked!

This may sound like a lot of travelling and trying to fit quality training in everyday around theses matches is not easy especially when not getting home until the early hours on both Tuesday and Wednesday nights. This is made even worse on nights like my first North West of this season where a flat tyre on my way home meant arriving back at 3am!

Like in many different walks of life money (or more importantly the need for it) dictates my actions though and until I reach the big time it has to be done!