Undefeated Champion of the World

If you don’t associate squash with sporting legends, you just haven’t met Heather McKay. Heather came from a sports mad family and squash wasn't her first choice - she took up the sport to maintain her fitness while playing hockey. But Heather quickly learned that she was pretty good at squash, and after entering her first competition, she never looked back.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Squash is maybe not the first sport that comes to
mind when you think about Australian champions. It started life
in London prisons in the eighteen hundreds as hard rackets
and evolved into the cleverly named squash, using a softer
ball that squashed when hit. From there it became a
posh sort of sport. The Titanic even had a court

(00:28):
available for hire in first class. But if you don't
associate squash with Australian legends, you just haven't met HEATHERA. Mackay. Hey,
I'm Tony Armstrong and welcome to the pool room, where
we celebrate the winners, losers and the weird stuff between.

(01:09):
Heather mackay came from a sporting family. Her dad was
a champion rugby league player, and both her parents played
competitive tennis. She had ten brothers and sisters, and every
one of them was into tennis, golf, hockey or rugby,
so squash wasn't Heather's first choice, but she was great

(01:32):
at every sport she tried, especially ones that involved a
bat and ball. She also played first class racquetball and
field hockey. Actually, Heather got into squash via the sports
she already played on holiday in Sydney as a teenager,
she and some mates happened to stop by a squash

(01:52):
court and after watching the match, Heather decided it would
be a good way to improve her fitness on the
hockey field. You know, just become a world champion in
one sport so you can be even better at another.
Easy She quickly impressed her coach, Alan Netting. Heather was
by all accounts super competitive, and Alan quickly entered her

(02:15):
into the new South Wales Local County Championships. She took
out not only the junior title but also the open
women's title. Heather's career took off. She headed to the
state championships in Sydney with her sports mad mother and
grandmother tagging along like Roadi's. By the end of the event,

(02:38):
only one year after taking up the sport, Heather mackay
was Junior State champion. Knowing greatness could be in her future,
Heather moved from Queenbean to Sydney, where she became Australian
champion two years running. Then she decided it was time
to take on the world. There's no official world squash

(03:01):
title at this time, but the British Open was the
Crem de la Crem, and Heather had her sight set
on victory. The locals of Queen Beean raised two hundred
and thirty one pounds to buy the plane ticket for
their local squash Seleb. Knowing almost no one. In nineteen

(03:23):
sixty two, Heather stepped onto the tarmac in London as
an amateur. She didn't have a team or manager. It
was up to her to keep fit and work hard.
Ten days later, her competitive streak pushed her to enter
the Scottish Open, seeing as a chance to warm up
before the British Open. British squash wasn't exactly like the

(03:45):
game she was used to. The ball was spongier than
the Australian one, so it played differently on the court.
Even that mostly didn't stop Heather. She made it through
to a final against Fran Marshall, who was Great Britain's
number one player. Heather lost in five straight games. In
a letter home, she wrote, don't worry, it won't happen again.

(04:08):
She meant it won't happen again on this trip. But
the nineteen sixty two Scottish Open was Heather Mackaia's final loss.
She never lost a match again. The very next week,
she defeated Fran Marshall three games to one in the
North of England Open. Then she did it again in
the final of the British Open. Heather kept on winning

(04:31):
that title every year from nineteen sixty two to nineteen
seventy seven. She was the first non English player to
win since the event's inception. In nineteen twenty two, when
Heather wasn't in the UK, she was winning at home.
She also reigned as Australian amateur champion for fourteen consecutive

(04:54):
years from nineteen sixty to nineteen seventy three. When she
she retired in nine to eighty one, aged forty, HEATHERN
mackay had spent almost twenty years playing competitive squash totally undefeated.
It's a huge understatement to say Heather dominated the sport
of squash for two decades. Even after retiring from the

(05:17):
top level, she kept winning. She's also got two over
forty five and two over fifty World championship titles. HEATHERN
mackay was right about squash being good for her general
sporting fitness by the way, she kept playing hockey throughout
her squash career and at the same time, she was
unbeatable on the court. She was named an All Australian

(05:38):
Field hockey player twice. Oh and Heather was also American
Amateur Racquetball Champion and American Professional Racquetball Champion three times,
and she was a five time Canadian racquetball champion. As
well as being a very worthy Sport Australia Hall of
Fame inductee, she's also in the USA Racketball Hall of Fame.

(06:00):
How's that for well rounded? But her accolades don't end there.
In nineteen sixty seven, HEATHERN. Mackay was given the dubious
and confusing title of ABC sports Man of the Year,
which is maybe a testament to just how good she was.

(06:33):
Thanks for dropping into the poolroom. You've been listening to
an iHeart production. I hope you enjoyed it. I'm Tony
Armstrong and I'll catch you in the next one.