MICK TODDOwner of Pontefract Squash Club ...
You were already here when Malcolm arrived in the club the first time. How did it go?
He fitted in very easily, that’s why he is still here, I mean, Malcolm had gone through a lot with this club, far more than I did, before I took over the club. At that time, I was just a social squash player, and he was the main figure. I class him “an eccentric genius”.
He basically goes head on with everybody and everything, and he says it as it is, and that’s really how I live my life, and that’s why we have a good relationship, an unbelievable relationship where I say my mind, and he says his mind … and then we both decide that I was right in the first place!
Yes, I can see that happening ...
I leave him to do his job and give him the facilities to do so. He is very demanding in that area. We’re always communicating on how to take the squash forward and also about the players’ situation, because he is very demanding where the players are concerned. He will teach them from junior level right up to senior level. He had a fracas with every owner of the club because he is a stubborn man, he knows where he is going, he knows what he wants to achieve and he does it.
A bit like a bulldozer, really?
Yes, but it’s the only way to produce world class ANYTHING. You’ve got an idea, you’ve got a way that you think is correct, and you’ve got to do it. And people have got to allow him to do it. Because one of the biggest problems he has, and that a lot of coaches all over the world have, is with parents. The parents want the best for their children, the parents might not have done the best for themselves, they might even live their lives through their children’s. I call them “the interference officers”. They bring the child, and they want to be part of it, instead of leaving one of the best coaches in the world to do his job. Stand back and enjoy what he does. If you take your child to school, you don’t sit in the classroom, do you?
He is a very honest man, isn’t he?
Well, he is not always right, and he knows he’s not always right, but he is not afraid to put his point forward. Sometimes he knows he is wrong, and the people who don’t know him actually think that he is being argumentative, but he just does it to create some interest knowing that he is wrong. And I just tell him not to do that on my letterhead paper.
If you had three words to describe Malcolm?
An Opinionated, Controversial, Eccentric Genius.
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talking about |
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He knows where he is going, he knows what he wants to achieve and he does it. |
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Malcolm will do it Malcolm’s way! |