Take that you #@€*¥ racquet !

A few weeks ago I was refereeing a junior match and had to give a conduct warning to one of our juniors. He was playing well, in a hard fought match, but was cursing his mistakes a bit too crudely and audibly.

A conduct warning is an official warning from the ref that your behaviour is not acceptable. Audible or visible obscenity is one of the things that are not allowed under the important Rule 17 in the Laws of Squash.

Squash is often difficult mentally. And it can be difficult to keep your cool. But you need to stay calm even when you are working hard. Watch any adult match and you will very often hear some 'rude' words (some of them very)- usually aimed by the speaker at themselves not their opponent.

But when you come to play in junior league matches and tournaments, you should realize that there will be zero-tolerance of this sort of thing from referees. They will also be just as strict about any throwing of your racquet and angry hitting of the ball between points.

And after two or three conduct warnings the referee can award a conduct point to your opponent. The rules don't say when this will happen - but any reasonable referee will give fair warning - something like: "next time you say that, it'll be a conduct point" .

And once a conduct point is given the rules say that it has to be the same for the next time (for the same thing in the same match). You can't go back to getting only a conduct warning. So losing your cool could lose you the match!