Pat Nicol, father of former world number one Peter and coach to Aberdeen’s Robyn Hodgson, believes Hodgson’s absence from international squash is an embarrassment to the sport.
Teenager Hodgson is not being selected by Scottish Squash as she has stopped making the 250-mile round trip to Edinburgh for training sessions with the national junior squad.
Pat Nicol, who stepped down as national junior coach and team manager in July 1996, believes Hodgson’s plight highlights how flawed is the current system.
He said: “When I took the job at national level I laid out my criteria. If our players were Scottish and they were the best players in the country, they were in the team, but my approach didn’t go down too well.
“The problem we have is that Scottish Squash is very central belt-based and squash outside that area is unimportant. Robyn’s results should be enough to show she is good enough but, as she no longer attends the sessions, they don’t want to know.
“Our game is being operated as a clique and that is wrong.”
Under the current criteria, even Peter Nicol would not have been eligible to play.
He said: “Peter was an exceptional player even at a young age. He would regularly go to tournaments and win under-12 and under-14 events in the same weekend. He was so good they couldn’t ignore him.
“Sadly, we have now reached a point where they will pick who they want.
“We had a batch of youngsters at our squash school at Westhill who were ranked from first to eighth in the country in their age group. But when Scottish Squash put out its rankings it put two players – one from Glasgow and one from Edinburgh – at numbers one and two.
“The parents here were furious and complained to me but I told them they should complain to Scottish Squash. They were told the two players had been taken away to compete in a Euro-pean event, where they struggled, but since they had a European ranking they were better than our players.
“The whole system is a mess and, as long as this is allowed to continue, squash will suffer. The standard and number of players playing is lowering every year. It’s as if no one else outside the squad exists.”