Squash: Memory of terrible year fuels Beachill's golden ambition

Lee Beachill was slumped unconscious, his back broken, at the wheel of the new car he had just crashed into a brick wall. A few hours later, lying in the emergency department of a hospital in his native Yorkshire, England's best young squash player, then 20, was told that he would probably never play again.

It was early 1998 and Beachill's annus horribilis was in full swing. If anyone had told him then that he would go into the 2002 Commonwealth Games in the world's top 10 and with a half-decent shot at gold, he would have laughed all the way to the X-ray unit. Fate, it seemed, had it in for him.

A few months earlier Beachill had been on a trip to Portugal, where he had led his club to success in the European Club championships. He had gone for a meal to celebrate and selected chicken. The salmonella was free. It led to serious poisoning, hospitalisation and weight loss of two stone. His recovery had just been sealed with a return to action when the car crash happened.

"I'd been at a league match in Halifax," he said. "I was driving home to Pontefract in a new car and I was messing about with the radio trying to get it to work. I took my eyes off the road for a second. When I looked up, I saw a parked car ahead. There was no danger of hitting it, but it spooked me and I reacted. The car started skidding, swerved sideways across the road and hit a wall. I was knocked out and came round in the ambulance.

"I was told I'd broken my back, crushed two vertebrae, and I might never play again. At a time like that everything just sails weirdly through your mind – the stupid thing I'd just done, everything in life that might have been, what I could do now instead. There was nothing. I couldn't think of anything."

Never one to allow obstacles to get in his way, the former multi-titled junior and his family set about seeking optimistic opinion. They found it in a physiotherapist and specialist who both believed total rehabilitation was possible. Neither could have expected the progress they saw. Within days Beachill was on his feet, within weeks he was moving almost normally and within months he was on court again.

But Lady Bad Luck still had one more trick to play. A year to the day after contracting salmonella, he was go-karting at a friend's birthday party. As he recalls the incident, you can see what's coming much more quickly than he saw the kart that ran him down. "At the end of our hour I parked up and climbed out. One of the others thought there still had a lap to go and came flying round the corner. He didn't quite make it and ended up crushing my foot. It was quite bad, actually, three months before I was fully fit again and I still feel it tweak sometimes."

As the only lasting physical legacy of a terrible year, Beachill will settle for that. The mental legacy has been solely inspirational. "Things like that change you in different ways. I want to be a better player. I'm more determined. I don't take things for granted. I wouldn't advise anyone to go out and crash their car into a wall in order to become a better person, but..."

Beachill is clearly motivated to make the most of his talents. He started playing at eight, won junior titles at every level, became the European junior champion and helped England to the world junior team title in 1996. In March 1996, ranked No 205 in the world, he made his debut on the senior tour. When Treble Trouble struck he was well on the rise.

Full recovery saw him climb into the top 50 by January 1999. By March 2001, a few weeks after becoming the lowest seed ever to win the British National Championships, he was inside the top 20. In February this year he became the first person ever to defend the national title successfully, beating the world No 1, Peter Nicol, in the process. That victory helped him climb to be the world's No 8, his highest-ever ranking.

Which all leaves Beachill optimistic about the Commonwealth Games. "That last win over Pete was at the Manchester Velodrome but the courts are portable and will be the same set-up for the Games," he said. "The only difference is they'll be across the road [at the new National Squash Centre within the Sportcity development].

"I've got a lot of confidence. I've had some big results in Manchester. I've got a good record against the top four seeds, with Power [Jonathan, from Canada, the world No 2] the only one I've never beaten. But I feel I can do him on home turf. He doesn't like playing in England. And if I come up against Pete, our matches tend to be close. He doesn't enjoy playing me but I enjoy playing him."

Nicol is the reigning Commonwealth champion, a title he won four years ago representing his native Scotland. That he famously defected to England last year in search of better back-up left some people miffed, Beachill included, although the Yorkshireman stresses there is nothing personal in his objection.

"Pete's a great guy, very likeable," he says. "I'm playing doubles with him for England at the Games. But the system that allowed his defection is wrong. I don't disagree with what Pete did. I disagree with the system that allowed him to do it. That fact that someone can represent a country at the highest possible level and then switch, that can't be right."

Some might argue that it can't be right for one man to fall prey to such misfortune as Beachill has endured. But he has bounced back and is now relishing his opportunity. "I've got a great chance of winning and squash has got a great chance to raise its profile. It should be an interesting time." And he knows all about those.