THE owners of an Oxford health club which has served thousands of sports enthusiasts for 30 years have decided to close the centre.

Ron and Michael Wyatt opened the Temple Squash Club in Cowley in 1978 and welcomed scores of players, from amateurs to professionals.

But now the brothers, who both still live in the city, have decided to sell up.

The Oxford Road building, which is now home to the Arena Health and Fitness Club, closed its doors for the final time yesterday.

Ron Wyatt, 65, from Hinksey Hill, Oxford, said they had decided to call it a day to concentrate on their other business interests, which include Waterstock Golf Club, near Wheatley.

A spokesman said the club would relocate within Cowley in the spring and its several hundred members would get refunds on their memberships or have their joining fees waived if they signed up again.

The club's nine staff, who have been made redundant, could be offered jobs at the new site.

Mr Wyatt said: "We opened the squash club and it was very successful - we had quite a lot of international players there. A lot of Oxfordshire people learned the game there. At the time squash courts were very scarce.

"We opened up an opportunity for a lot of people. It eventually evolved into a health club and it was a snooker club too.

"We are gradually going over to golf now. We are at an age when it is really time to pack up."

Mr Wyatt said the family had sold the half-acre site to a firm called EW Black, but did not know what they planned to do with it.

In its heyday, the squash club had seven regular courts and one glass-backed court with seating for audiences to watch high-profile games.

Mr Wyatt said the club had hosted celebrities such as rock 'n' roll singer Tommy Steele and Rising Damp actor Leonard Rossiter.

Famous squash players who visited the club included world champions Jonah Barrington, Geoff Hunt and Jahangir Khan.

But Mr Wyatt added: "Our place should be remembered for all the kids who played squash because there were no facilities anywhere else."

The club, which also offered eight snooker tables, stopped being used for squash in the mid-1980s and was converted into a gym.

It was also used as a nightclub, also known as Arena, which closed down about five years ago.

Mr Wyatt said: "It's a bit of an end of an era. It's time really that somebody else had a go at it."

A spokesman for Arena Fitness said the business was hoping to relocate elsewhere in the Cowley area.