This Is Guernsey

Mark Roberts in the quiet of the dressing room before a big match. (0538072)

WHOEVER walks away with the island senior men’s squash title this week will have to go a long way to emulate the career of arguably the finest men’s player the King’s Club conveyor belt ever produced.

It is not that Mark Roberts won the trophy 15 times, his 10 CI successes came in four different decades and often in the most spectacular fashion.

Never has a greater entertainer trod the old court six and the man they affectionally refer to as ‘Robbo’ is not in the least bit sad that he could so easily have swapped domination of Channel Islands squash for a professional career in the higher reaches of the world game.

‘Everything has been special,’ said the man who has hit more nicks than there are Nicholases in Britain.

‘It’s been a real pleasure,’ he adds.

No less a judge than Reg Harbour, the man who played a key role in the advancement of Lisa Opie, Martine Le Moignan, Jason Nicolle and John Le Lievre, reckoned Roberts could have been a world number two.

But it did not happen and what was the professional game’s loss was the gain of local squash fans who would marvel at the often outrageous skills of this natural ball player.

‘I could have given it a few more years, but at the end of the day people don’t realise you would be playing sport for your living, it’s your job.

‘It’s a case of slogging your guts out, living out of a suitcase for very little. But c’est la vie,’ he says, while shruggling his shoulders.

Looking back, he insists he is happy with his career path, one which has not only landed him 10 Channel Island titles, England caps at under-16, 19 and 23 levels, but also a trail of admirers who felt there was more to be got from the Old Elizabethan.

‘I’m immensely proud of what I’ve done and it outweighs any negative thoughts.

‘I liked entertaining people – it gave me a great buzz.’

He admits that it just might have happened for him professionally, but circumstances and bad timing stood in his way, as opposed to a lack of ambition.

‘I wouldn’t have had to do a lot more [to make it], but I needed a stable camp and trainer behind me.

‘I needed somebody to kick me out of bed, to say we’re going to do this today or that. I don’t think I was far away at all.’

But a fractured vertebra came at the wrong time.

Living away and working hard to establish himself, the injury put him out for up to eight weeks and there were bills to pay.

‘I had to phone mum back home and ask her to pay the rent.’

The answer was to come back to Guernsey and although he returned briefly to the UK – three months – ‘my heart wasn’t in it’.

Back he came for good.

His last Guernsey and CI title success came in 2003 at the age of 39, the first area championship in 1979 when, just two weeks after his 15th birthday and having reached only the quarter-finals of the island championships, he defeated the king – Max Trouteaud.

‘My first real recollection of winning something was in the inter-insular that year.

‘It was 2-2 and last on I played Andrew Crichton and beat him off court.’

Roberts was just 14, still a blond tiddler on the verge of a dramatic growth spurt.

A succession of Jersey players were to be murdered by the youngster over the coming years.

One of them was the plucky Caesarean star, Micky Reid, who was walloped for the loss of six points in 15 minutes.

Roberts’s first coach was Harbour but it was his second, Gavin Dupre, who made the difference, according to the player.

‘Reg’s record speaks for itself with the players he brought through.

‘But Gavin brought the flair out of my game.

‘He had all the touch shots and, with him, that’s when I felt I got better.’

Roberts followed Dupre to Germany for nine months and then it was on to the UK where he reached the final of the British Under-19s, beating the top seed, David Lloyd, on the way.

The talented Zain Saleh denied him the title, though.

He also reached the final of the world under-16 only to lose to the Swede, Anders Wahlstedt, who also put paid to the Sarnian in the semi-finals of the Drysdale Cup.

But, and it might seem strange given the variety of international talent he played, it was a match with a fellow Guernseyman he rates as his most memorable moment.

‘To me, my defining moment to finish off my career was to play my hero, John Le Lievre, in two matches at Beau Sejour.

‘Two old has-beens going for it [in the Hairtek Masters of 1995].

‘John beat me in the first leg, but I won the second 3-1 to win overall. To me it was a fitting end.

‘From day one, I looked up locally to John and Max.

‘Max is still doing the club nights at Beau Sejour and to me he is another icon.’

Roberts is still playing and, I suggest, had he the urge to get himself truly into shape, would still be a force this week.

He won the island over-35s in November and in the autumn teamed up with the hot favourite for this week’s singles title, Martin Watts, to play doubles in the alternative Island Games.

It’s a far cry from the days when the legendary Jonah Barrington was sufficiently impressed by the Guernsey boy to want to take him under his wing.

‘It was one of my proudest moments for such a world icon to get in contact with me when I had moved to Oxford when I was 16/17.

‘He came down, off his own bat, to coach and train me once a week.’

Ultimately, Barrington’s bid to make a world champion out of him failed, but to Guernsey squash audiences Roberts will always be number one.