As squash's prestigious British Junior Open prepares to enter its 100th year, it's a natural moment to look back through the tournament's roll of honour and remember some of its finest matches, achievements and characters.
First conceived in 1926 as the Drysdale Cup for public schoolboys at the exclusive Royal Automobile Club on London's Pall Mall, over the proceeding century the event has grown and evolved into a multi-cultural, highly competitive breeding ground for future professionals.
The boys' competition was solely for U19 players until 1988, when U14 and U16 categories were added. The girls' competition began in 1949 as an U21 event, before lowering the age ceiling to U19 from 1967. There are now five age categories for both boys and girls, but the U19 title remains the most prized of them all.
When looking down the list of U19 winners over the decades, there are some eye-catching details. Here's one of them: only three players have ever won the U19 trophy on four occasions.
This feat is so rare because anyone achieving it would have to be 15 on winning the trophy for the first time. At that age, it requires prodigious talent, phenomenal confidence and physical acumen to beat the best 18-year-olds in the world.
Not surprisingly, only one male player has ever achieved this: England's Del Harris (1985-88). Egypt's Omneya Abdel Kawy (2001-04) is the most recent. The first was Jayne Ashton of Warwickshire.
Jayne, now 68, recounted to Squash Player how her first time lifting the trophy at South Kensington Squash Club in 1973 was almost ruined by a flask of tomato soup!
"The thermos broke, and I had a whole load of Fred Perry gear covered in thick red soup," she recalled. "I won my first round match and I was absolutely devastated, because I'd bought a day return ticket and I hadn't got any other clothes to wear. As soon as I came off court, I thought, 'What am I going to do now?'"
A phone call home eventually sorted the problem as a family friend who ran Fred Perry and lived in London quickly drove to the club with some spare kit.
"Can you imagine, the devastation of winning in the first round!" she laughs. "It's unbelievable that I worried about that, looking back on it."
With fresh gear, Jayne's campaign could continue, but she wasn't confident of beating no.3 seed Eleanor Marshall. Her sense of intimidation was because Eleanor was the daughter of Fran Marshall, the 1961 British Open champion perhaps best known for being the last person ever to beat Heather McKay before the Australian's awesome 16-year unbeaten run.
Nevertheless, Jayne did beat her, before sealing her first British Junior Open Championship girls' U19 trophy by defeating Carol Machin of Middlesex 9-5 4-9 9-7 9-3 in the 1973 final.
The then-15-year-old rushed back home to Birmingham and Edgbaston Priory Club, where she eagerly told her coach about her achievement.
The coach in question was Nasrullah Khan, part of the famous Pakistani squash dynasty (uncle of Jahangir and, at that time, coach of Jonah Barrington). His response somewhat took the wind from her sails.
"I remember coming back and being really excited to tell him I'd won the trophy," she says. "He didn't speak too much English, and all he said to me was, 'Now you must work!'
"He was always good at keeping my feet on the ground. I absolutely adored him. If it hadn't been for Nasrullah I'd never have got to where I got to."
The ripple effects of winning the BJO were immediate. Later that year, she received a call-up to represent the England senior team in Cardiff, still aged just 15. "That was a huge opportunity and was pretty amazing," Jayne reflects.
Back she went to Kensington Squash Club next year (sensibly avoiding the day return ticket this time) to win a second title, beating Julie Varney 9-2 9-4 9-0. The following year, at London's Lambton Club, she breezed past Katerina Due Boje of Sweden 9-0 9-3 9-0 to make it a hat-trick.
Reaching her fourth and last final, aged 18, at Cambridgeshire Hotel in Cambridge, she again met Due Boje and was given a much tougher time, but still won 4-9 10-8 10-8 9-6. Four U19 titles; a feat that's never been beaten and matched by only one other girl, 28 years later.
Jayne puts her achievements at such a young age down to playing mostly with adults at Edgbaston Priory and the abundance of role models she had around her.
At that time, the Women's Squash Rackets Association (the governing bodies were split into men's and women's back then) assigned her a 'Squash Mother' as a mentor and coach.
The lady in question was Bobsie Whitehead, whom Jayne remembers with great fondness and gratitude. "Bobsie had a hit with me once a week, organised people for me to play and advised me on which tournaments to enter," she says.
"She hit with me until I was about 22. To have someone who would dedicate that much time as a volunteer is just amazing. Bobsie and Nasrullah really helped me develop."
Rahmat and Aman, Nazrullah’s sons, were frequent hitting partners and Sue Cogswell (five-time British champion and three-time British Open runner-up) was an Edgbaston Priory member and role model for Jayne in her youth.
Jayne also watched Jonah Barrington's famous marathon British Open final against Geoff Hunt at Edgbaston in 1970 and once had a hit with the great Heather Mackay, who offered treasured words of encouragement.
"I couldn't have been more inspired," she says. "There were a lot of good players around and I hung around the club all the time. I was probably a bit of a nuisance really!"
Jayne was later a member of the England team that won the Women's World Team Squash Championships in 1979, defeating Australia 3-0 in the final. She competed in 10 British Opens, the last in 1987.
Although she blossomed a little too early in the professional era to make a living out of competing, Jayne spent five happy years travelling the world and playing, largely in Australia and New Zealand. "I had the longest gap year of anyone I knew!" she chuckles.
Thereafter, she went into squash coaching and coach education, before doing a Masters in Recreation Management at Loughborough, then working in tennis development for Birmingham City Council and the LTA until her retirement.
Two years ago, she was invited back to the British Junior Open to present the girls' U19 trophy to Egypt's Fayrouz Abouelkheir, 51 years on from being recipient of the same accolade herself.
"To see the difference between the event now and when I won it was just amazing," she said "It's not even comparable."
Her record of four U19 titles certainly is comparable, however. Jayne is one of only two women alive ever to have achieved it. And she'll always be the first.
