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Malcolm WILLSTROP THE ECCENTRIC GENIUS "Mick Todd's involvement and impact on the club is nothing short of a miracle." |
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He
has been involved with
the Pontefract Squash & Leisure Club, Malcolm's base, even since before
Malcolm's arrival, and has been the owner since 2000. Mick TODD: MALCOLM'S 'PARTNER IN CRIME' When did you get involved in the ownership of the club? It was about four years ago, the club had been in administration for 4 years which is a hell of a long time. So, it was going nowhere, except downhill. I had been a member of this club for 20 years. I had a bad motorcycle accident, and, as I am a mechanical engineer by trade, and I couldn’t do anything for 18 months. So I looked into the possibility of purchasing the club. It took a very long time. When I was showing my solicitors and my accountants the books, etc, they were all saying, it’s not a worthwhile business to take on, they said I was mad. I had a partner at the time who was a good squash player who decided it wasn’t a good idea, but who said he’d stay with me if I tried to achieve it. And it took about 2 years before eventually we signed on the dotted line, which was a lease agreement and it had a planning option on it from a big development company who was buying all the land around this area, eight acres. They could close it within six months. So, I was buying into a business without knowing what was going to happen. You’re mad! Yes, but not as mad as Malcolm or you, anyway… You couldn’t be more right… Yes, but that’s how it is! You have got to have passion, your heart, a gut feeling, and a will to win. When I took over, there were less than 50 paying members. Now, there are over a thousand. There again, I couldn’t tell them the whole story, couldn’t tell them that in six months, it could be closed. So what did you say? So, I told them what was going to happen “I purchased the place, we are going to make it like it was, even better than what it was”. Within six months, we had something like 800 members, and we put the money straight into the fabric of the building. The amount we put back is absolutely ridiculous. It’s just a continuous job, it’s twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. How did your spouse take the strain? Still to this day, we have massive arguments about it. My wife doesn’t play squash, but she knows I’m passionate about it, she knows exactly what’s happened, she knows what I’ve done, people know. And the results speak for themselves, don’t they? Yes, in three years, we’ve been voted “Centre of Excellence”, and there are not many clubs that get it, we were the first or the second club to get the Gold Club Charter Award from England Squash, and then last year, we received the “2003 Best squash club in Britain Award” at Earl’s Court.
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CLUB
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Individual Championships
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Coming up on Day FOUR: That Match Malcolm talks to Framboise about his dealings with Gregory Gaultier, and about that match in the World Team Championships in Vienna. Day four was published on Thursday 19th August |
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[ Malcolm ] [ About Malcolm ] | ||||