This time last year I was recovering from surgery and there was time to think about my age and impending expiration as a squash player. It’s good to feel that age is no barrier but, as sure as eggs is eggs, there’s a limit on a professional squash career. So at 32 years young, with five months off and a tired hip, it all became a bit more – what’s the word – real. Fetch the violin.

I did some different things. I squeezed in a course, which was a real novelty; life as a squash player means no week is ever the same, so it’s virtually impossible to commit to anything like that. And there was plenty of theatre too; one of the trips was with my girlfriend Vanessa and her parents to watch a group called Adel Players in North Leeds. I hadn’t seen a lot of amateur theatre and their production of Rutherford and Son was so impressive.

A week later, still housebound and having exhausted all eating and drinking options in the Harrogate and Knaresborough district, I thought I could do no worse than to drop them a line. Just to be involved with the group in any way, watch them and experience the theatre would indulge my interest in drama. It might be good to enter a new world and be challenged differently. Apart from the rehab, and trying to keep my weight down, challenges were scarce.

Initially I met two of the members, Pat and Bernard Riley, who were so welcoming. The whole group was very talented; some were artistically driven, others were screenwriters and film-makers, and they were all very savvy when it came to drama. Pat had written a published biography of Githa Sowerby, playwright and writer of Rutherford and Son. I started to learn a lot by joining them.

A year down the line and I have become so involved that I find myself now rehearsing as one of the actors for the October production of Journey’s End, about life in the trenches in the first world war. The dates of the play and rehearsals fell kindly around squash tournaments and for some reason the casting committee seemed to think I could play a big role, a captain suffering with alcoholism whose experiences at the front have destroyed him. So there we have it. I seem to have caught a bug. I’ve been lucky to have been given the chance. My dad, in jocular fashion, now refers to squash as my second job.

During the 100th anniversary of #WW1, we're delighted to present RC Sherriff's 'Journey's End' 21st-24th Oct #Leeds pic.twitter.com/UG1g4HMYap — Adel Players (@AdelPlayers) September 15, 2015

We are, of course, in a centenary year of the first world war, and it really has been something to read and learn about life on the western front in particular. Journey’s End is a profoundly moving piece of drama, with some contrasting and fascinating characters. With so little experience, it’s a difficult and sensitive subject to be exploring and portraying and it’s been really something to watch and work with the actors and crew in Adel.

Many athletes feel empty as they approach their final years and worry that they won’t have the outlet for performance they have always enjoyed. I don’t like the thought of not having those big occasions to build towards when it’s been a life so full of them. While most careers are steadily built upon over decades, an athlete’s is almost always cut short by age, leaving us, to cite war parlance, in no man’s land at 35. At that’s 35 if we are lucky.

Living without the tensions, that quickening heart before a match, the disabling nerves, and without stepping out under the lights to entertain in that heightened atmosphere, might be odd to say the least. There’s a fear involved which can be crippling and yet exhilarating. You put yourself out there on a court to fail or succeed. I love walking that precipice.

Often more fulfilling than the achievement is having produced patterns of squash within rallies and matches that excite and inspire people. I love feeling the buzz of a crowd that sits rapt with anticipation at what they are about to see, and I greatly value it when a squash fan comes up to tell me they loved this shot or that, or that they were moved by a game I played. I feel hugely fortunate that these experiences have been a part of what I do.

After retirement this void can be a very difficult thing for athletes to deal with, and it’s been well documented that many can’t cope. Some have encountered serious and debilitating issues. It’s often likened to an addictive drug and that is absolutely true. It’s tremendously hard to live without that rush when it is what you have always known. Of course, it’s not the end of the world, and as professional athletes we are lucky to have felt these experiences at all, but to some extent it is an addiction and some people probably either need to be carefully weaned off it, or there needs to be a replacement.

The Journey’s End cast. Photograph: David

I suppose drama has become, perhaps not quite a replacement yet, but certainly something that gives me a similar buzz. The parallels are clear. Like a piece of entertainment in a concert hall or theatre, sport can be artistic and affecting when done well, and it is dangerous. It’s the element of fear, the fact that a performance has to count under pressure, that connects sport and other forms of live performance.

An actor on stage must portray character with subtlety and show different shades of colour. A squash player needs to change pace and rhythms similarly. Both forms demand creativity and moments of inspiration. A squash player wants to play the great shot and the dramatist wants to deliver or help to deliver a moving scene or a funny line.

Sport is a performance really, and it’s essentially a drama that is played out, often in front of an audience. And you are, some might say, playing a different person.

Learning lines is a challenge that’s similar to solo practice. It’s not always the most enjoyable work because it has to be repetitive, but it’s necessary. I find if I don’t apply myself to that then the lines don’t go in. And if I breeze through a practice session without concentrating, I won’t have grasped a certain swing or shot.

I was thinking about the reaction I’ve had from people. Most of them have been a bit surprised and some have laughed at me. Somehow acting is not thought of as something a professional athlete might like to do. I’m not entirely sure why this should be so.

There are two groups when it comes to sporting dramatists: the professional athletes who have become actors – Arnold Schwarzenegger, Eric Cantona, Vinnie Jones, Mike Tyson – and the professional athletes who could definitely become actors. Plenty of my squash player compatriots act very well on court. Some would be excellent in farces. I won’t name names but squash fans will know who I mean. Footballers too are often suggested to be playacting for their outrageous dives and the way they feign injury; managers parading and behaving like babies on the touchline must also be given a mention.

The two worlds seem to me nicely connected. If professional athletes don’t move into acting, then many move in to TV or radio presenting, or public speaking, curiously another alternative form of live performance. I won’t be presumptuous or arrogant enough to think I’ll have the strength, talent or fame to be able to do a Cantona, but it would be exciting to stay involved within dramatic circles, in some small way, certainly with Adel players, if they’ll keep me.

Being a part of this drama group has been enormous fun and I thank them for involving and encouraging me, and for opening up a little world. And is this now the bit where I unashamedly plug it?

Journey’s End runs from 21-24 October at Adel War Memorial Hall in Leeds. Tickets are available from 0113 2755585 and tickets@adel-players.org.uk



• This is an article from James Willstrop’s blog

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