Born 10 April 1962 in Lowestoft, England. He is the younger Bopsey. He is the better Bopsey.
For now …
Karam, as a pudgy child, never considered himself to be athletic. When he and the elder Bopsey were attending Ridley College he was often asked why he wasn’t as good as the elder who was setting track and field records and generally excelling at sports at school. He had no answer.
His first real love of sports came as he learned to play cricket at Ridley. At the age of 13 he started to play during the summer in the men’s league. The elder was also playing so the younger wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary! He managed to forge a real love of the game as a medium fast bowler, a middle order batsman and a pretty reasonable fielder. In his late teens he contemplated heading back to England to see if he might make a go of it as a career but, alas, that was only a dream.
Ridley required one to play a different sport in each term. First term was soccer, second term was ice hockey. Third term was cricket. He enjoyed playing hockey but wasn’t that good at it. In his very last game, which was for an internal school competition, he played an absolute blinder even rattling the post with a break-away goal attempt.
In the first few years at Ridley squash not a sport option as for some reason one wasn’t allowed to play it until grade 9 (about 14 years old). He started to play North American hardball (70+) squash in lieu of hockey but viewed it more as fitness and footwork for the forthcoming cricket season.
It wasn’t until he was 18 that he started to play the international softball game as he played some league matches supporting the school teachers in the local league. He was starting to like the game but it was always second to cricket. He was in his early twenties when he started to play it more seriously, going to tournaments and actually training from time to time.
Karam eventually gave up cricket and played a lot more squash in the Niagara and District and then the Toronto and District leagues. His ability was probably best summed up by a quote from Dave Forgeron, owner of Garden Court Squash Club in St. Catharines – “One of the best backhands, worst set of legs!”. No argument from Karam on that assessment!
Karam moved to Ireland at the end of 1996 and essentially stopped playing squash as there was not a lot of squash being played where he lived. During this time he started to play some tennis at the local club but, while he enjoyed it a lot, it never gave him the same buzz that squash had.
Karam ran the half Connamarathon in 2009 in a very unspectacular time. Not being a natural runner he was very pleased with his perseverance at completing the run without stopping or resorting to walking.
Bouyed by that achievement he planned to run another half-marathon later in the year but suffered a significant back issue (L3:4 disc protrusion) that seemingly occurred out of the blue after landing a bit awkwardly when kicking a football around. A long recovery period followed after surgery.
Around late 2010 the elder Bopsey invited him to a doubles squash tournament in Bristol. He rediscovered his love of the game and started to look at what tournaments were being played in Ireland. He discovered the Masters-graded events and started to attend those. However, only going to tournaments with very little other squash in-between did not do much for improvement so he decided that he would need to find a club in order to get more regular squash. He eventually ended up at Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club in Dublin and has immersed himself in the sport trying to make up for lost time.
A recurrence of the back problem at L3:4 lead to another period of recovery but this turned out to be a blessing in disguise if that can ever be said of an injury. Surgery was not an option a second time and so more conservative treatment was required. It was this fact that led Karam to meet Derek Ryan who helped Karam through his recovery and showing him the importance of core strength – something Karam had never considered at any point in his athletic career. With this new knowledge the original back injury, in hindsight, was somewhat less “out of the blue”.
Having had a very successful recovery Karam experienced a period where he feels he played some of the best squash of his career to that point and would have easily beaten a younger version of himself. Karam got so into how well things were going that he started playing many tournaments and matches and didn’t devote enough time to the gym/core strengthening work leading a third back injury.
At the time of my first back injury I was in a lot of pain and it didn’t seem to be easing at all. I couldn’t imagine that there was anything I could do to cure my symtoms so I opted for surgery.
Although I believe my second back injury was less severe it was an eye-opening experience to see how well conservative treatment worked and, with continued application of core strengthening workouts, one came out the other side in better shape.
Once again Derek brought Karam back through the recovery process. An important lesson was learned – one can’t ignore the core strength and movement requirements of squash (and life in general really). It is a vital part of the fitness regime. It can’t be all play or it will end in tears again!
When asked why he is making this attempt at the record he replied
At first it was about getting closer to reaching my potential as a squash player. In order to successfully complete the trial I will have to get fitter and address my body composition issues which I consider to be my main obstacles to squash success.
However, since starting this journey I have adjusted my reasoning for doing this. I have come to realize that what I am really after is improving my health span and longevity. Undoing 50-odd years of lax nutrition and exercise are now key areas of focus. Being able to complete this challenge along with improved squash will be a natural outcome of that process.
Some of his achievements are
- Captained Ridley College First XI to ISAA championships 1980.
- Represented Canada for cricket at junior and senior level
- Captained Canadian U/19 cricket team tour to Denmark 1981
- Winner of Lewis Gunn (Outstanding Junior cricketeer) award 1981
- Voted most valuable player of the tour
- Represented Ireland at Masters level for squash
Karam is a software engineer by trade stating
I went down a few career trails but I eventually found something that I was pretty good at that didn’t require me to work too hard…
The Bopseys Go On a Long Journey 
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