At 5 Bairsdter arrived with very bad cold, handed me his tenner sure he wasn’t hanging around, then lost 3-0 to Ross McClure. Al would have hoped to win in good health, deserves MOTM just for turning up.

At 4 Ramzy continued his good run and beat Ian Macfarlane 3-1. Then left early to go courting.

At 3 I was up against a nice chap called Graham Reid. Garry warned about the sort of game it would be, but I didn’t believe it could be that much of a that sort of game. Lost 3-2.

At 2 Kenny Lumsden lost 3-1 to Fred Laing (I know how Jason likes opponents’ names esp if his old stomping ground), and rues a damaged foot.

At 1 Garry Dickson lost 3-1 to Tim Ross, and might have done better had he not been boozing till 3am last night.

Nite Nite, Colonel

Dave R lost 3 – 0, didn’t see it as was late (dodging the snipers on the roof – jeez, first time I have ever been there)

Kev ‘Duracell’ Cameron won 3 – 1 – great result – not sure if it’s his first outing in the seconds, but he did a fine job and will undoubtedly continue to improve as court craft develops – great effort.

Smithy lost 3 – 1, having won the first 15 – 1 ( think got to 13 – 0 before his opponent got a point, so close to that elusive ‘granny’) and totally cruising before his opponent managed to get out of neutral .

Douglas lost 3 – 1 to Billy – the guy with a bullet like whip crack away forehand and – Douglas was very close, think that two of the games he lost went into “two clear”

I won 3 – 2, having got 2 – 0 up before hitting the mental ‘off’ button, nearly getting grannied myself in the third (he got to 13), but managed to awake from my slumber just in time to take the decider. Must keep concentration. I think that the arrival of the pizzas during my match and the waft of a deep and crusty meat feast ultimately put my opponent off more than me.

On the pizza point, Smithy put in a fantastic performance on the four seasons cheese – destroying the opposition with a 5 slices to 3 victory.

We came away with 8 points and every soldier managed to make it home out of no mans land.

Have a good day

JT

Good win 13 7 against cameron house.

Matches I never saw any of:

At 5 Rob got beat 3 1. Don’t know much more than that. Important point.

At 4 Ben won 3 0. Don’t know any more than that. Excellent and important win.

Games I saw 2 minutes of each:

At 2 (me and DC did swap) , DC won 3 0. Excellent and important win.

At 1, Doug lost 3 0 up against very good guy.

Games I saw all of and was involved in:

At 3, I won 3 1.

So 13 7 win to DLWE 1 and hopefully keeps us in 3rd.
Cheers

1. Ramzy v Sharkir (MOTM) – 0-3 loss. Sharkir (Sharkey to his team
mates) made Duracell look like he was on ordinary alkaline batteries. Fast
about the court great volleying skills. Not much squash finesse, nearly took
Ramzy’s head off at one point, never dropped but just kept running. Close
score in the games only 8 points in it

2. Andrew A v David Ellis – once Andrew got to the correct university
having been to Strathclyde convincing 3-0 victory

3. David Maz v Sarah Iveson – 3-0 solid performance result never in
doubt

4. Craig P v Josh Bain – 3-0 Comfortable win for Craig

5. Donald (MOTM)v Ian Chalmers – 3-0 win Not one of Donald’s best
performances but good enough to win

Back to winning ways for the 4ths

Regards,

David Mazz

I arrived at 7pm and sat freezing my n*ts off for at least 2 hours at the back of a court with jacket and scarf on! Went on court and surprise surprise pulled my groin. I would have warmed up and stretched but those who have been will know u can barely get in the door let alone find a space to warm up or stretch.The court itself was hot at the back and freezing at the front.

In order of play:

The SquashFather (Rob Mac) lost 3 zip. This was an early start at 6.30 and by the time I arrived he had lost the match and then played another and won 3-1! I believe the 3 zip was a much closer contest than the scoreline leads u to believe.

Dave Ritchie had a tremendous 3-2 win at 5. Went 2 down but settled into the game in the 3rd, stopped the mistakes and ended up worthy winner. Man of the match.

Douglas went on at No.1. Never a contest. Not much to say other than he destroyed Danny. If it was a boxing match it would have been called off.

Davie (I play with my left hand in the first game) Craig turned up and played total @ish in the 1st (as he told me he would). Then won the next 3 against tricky opponent. Good win.

I went on. Played average / poor in first. Pulled groin early in the second and then that was it. Stupidly played out. Not sure what I was trying to achieve.

Two big games coming up. Next week away to Cameron House (tbc). I’m available I think – subject to injury clearing up – will follow the Big Handsomes (David C’s) tips and ice every night till Sun then stretch and heat thereafter (no squash allowed).

Night night

First on was Jason (Lang) v Garry McIlree at No.5. This was a tight match that went one way then the other. Jason took a tight 1st game, Garry a good 2nd, tie breaks in the 3rd and 4th went both ways – and so to the 5th!
Jason had been going for a lot of shots all match (missing a few too many for my liking). The 5th saw him go for less, but he was finding it tough to finish the rally as Garry was able to dig the ball back time after time. At 8-2 Garry forced Jason back to his short game which gives both fabulous shots and tins in equal measures. The score quickly became an unassailable lead of 10-4 and the last rights were read Jase was piped 3-2. He’ll play better than this no doubt, but a good performance from Garry certainly put him in line for MOTM.

Next up were the No.1s Kev (Moran) v Martin Woods. This has been a tough match in all but the last outing and with Kev just back from Manchester (from the British Nationals) it was interesting to see how he would react after a tough Tournament. Well the answer was positive as he won the tie, but Martin pushed him all the way. The 1st looked comfortable for Kev as Martin made quite a few uncharacteristic mistakes (must have been the video he set up making him nervous!?). But the camera shyness didn’t last long as Kev got involved in a bit of banter with the ref at the wrong time, causing a loss of both concentration and the 2nd game. Leaving the court Kev made a mistimed comment that saw a change of ref for the 3rd and a pirate (with his timbers shivered) demanding to know if he was being called a cheat – he wasn’t). Kev was soon back on track winning the 3rd, but Martin evened things up with a good fighting performance in the 4th. I missed the last one, but Kev won 5 points on the trot at 7-7 to win the match 3-2.

I was on next against Ross (Red) Lawrie at No.3 and although I’d had the better of our close encounters of the 3rd line(up), they were always tight and the 1st game was no different at 10-10. I knew this was the time to baton down the hatches, cut a good serve or two in and hit the back of the court. I managed to do this and 11-13 was the result (Sean was on hand to give some good advice about keeping it off Ross’s volley). The match carried on in much the same way in the 2nd and 3rd, but I managed not to leave it too late in these games and 8-8 became 11-8 in both. I was very pleased with the way I played; the strings on my Fury racket were still ‘cutting-up’ the ball ……………………….. like a ned in a XR3i.

Sean (Norris) was on next against Lee Frazer. Sean had won the last match 3-1 and he set straight to work chasing down everything Lee had to throw at him to take the 1st 11-6. Unfortunately in the 2nd he wasn’t tight enough and Lee just ran him into every corner…….. lots of times. But the battle started again in the 3rd and at 7-7 it was anyone’s, unfortunately anyone was Lee! But I thought Lee may tire and Sean may edge his way back into the match and I was absolutely right as Sean went 3-O up! Then Lee got back into his stride and took the game 11-5 and the match 3-1.

So at 2-2 in the match who was gonna take the 5th rubber and the bonus points?

Chris ‘the pirate’ Patrick lined up against Dougie ‘Harrow’ Kempsell. The pirate was expecting to lose and at (pieces of) 8-3 down he was doing just that. Dougie took the 1st comfortably and was 7-1 up in the 2nd before Chris decided to fling himself about a bit. He took the next 4 points (lost 1) and then another 5 in a row which gave him confidence to close the game out 11-9. So 2-2 in matches and 1-1 in the final one, what a great finish! Chris went 3-1 up in the 3rd game; could he pull of a magnificent win? Could he overturn the under 19 National Champ?? Could he produce a miracle??? No!
Dougie went on a match winning run just at the right time to take the next eighteen points to Chris’s one and eventually sailed home to win the match in style.

A feast of soup, sandwiches, pizza & Houston Ale for dinner was scoffed back by me and a very interesting conversation started when we all had a massive debate about things you shouldn’t do on the day of a match. Needless to say anyone who’s dad may or may not have been there was very embarrassed (vague enough? Probably just as well!)

Good chat with the Gryffe lads and the pirate challenged me to a squash duel at high noon on Friday.

Well what can I say, a limp wristed performance all round this week, on paper I think we should have taken them at home but we got pumped…… no, rodgered is probably more accurate and Paolo probably edged man of the match, but only because he umpired 2 matches!

Don’t want to single anyone out as we were all equally bad this week and the resulting 5-18 defeat is likely to push us down a notch in the rankings. Think we’ll need to claim Jason back for a couple of matches, or maybe get Mike Currie out of the care home for a game or two! If things don’t improve I’m going to have to call on the Rangers fitness coaches, they’re likely to be looking for work soon anyway! I’d call on their psychologists as well but they’re likely to be overworked soon!

Anyway, next week we’re up against Parklands at home, surely we’ll do better then!

Brian

First on at No.5 was Jason (Lang) against the Mugger (Graham McAinsh). A real tough ask of the youngster here, but Jase caught Graham cold and won the 1st game 11-6. However a bit of complacency set in at this point and I think he didn’t realise that the Mugger was only just warming the joints up, so the was duly mugged in the 2nd and the 3rd games. Graham looked like he was cruising to victory at this point and Jason was wondering what had gone wrong. But of course nothing had, the momentum had just shifted; and it needed shifting back, and fast! Graham played well to get to match ball in the 4th and it looked like ‘lights out’ for Jase, but he wasn’t done just yet! A 10-6 deficit became a 10-10 tie break and each player had chances to win, but with the away crowd cheering him on, Jase crossed the finish line just in time. And so to the 5th – Jason played really well in this one and was always ahead, Graham was what I can only describe as like the wheels on a bicycle (two tyred! Yeah I know) and Jason took full advantage to storm home to a thrilling 3-2 victory (he also upped his win stats to 60% and his thoroughly deserved MOTM awards!)

Could this be the break we needed to beat the No.2 side in the Division?

Next on was Sean with the nigh-on impossible task of beating Stuart (Boy) George. Everyone had told me how much Stu had improved, but this is the first time I’d seen him in full flow. He stuck Sean’s first serve in the nic and then cruised around the court for the rest of the game, winning easily. Sean needed to focus more on his own game and that’s what he did in the 2nd and 3rd games and he played much better. However it’s fair to say that Stuart was not at full throttle and he did what he had to do to win the match 3-0.

I was on next against Owen Hadden and after getting crunched in our last encounter I was expecting much the same tonight and I wasn’t disappointed (apart from the fact that I was!). Owen minced me in the 1st game, made me look stupid in the 2nd and if it wasn’t for the fact that he must have got a bit bored he would have done much the same in the 3rd. As it happened I got a thoroughly undeserved few points to spare my blushes, but it was a humping none the less. Having said that Owen looked very sharp and missed nothing (and there were no doughnuts on show!).

Next on at No.2 was Dougie (Kempsell) v Doctor Tennant – no not that one. This was a great match-up with Dougie playing powerful pressure squash and doing plenty of chasing to boot; Iain was moving the ball with a great fluidity, dropping with precision and both players were volleying well. I can’t remember who won which games, but the pattern for the first 4 games were much the same i.e. Dougie needed to keep the tempo high early on to make the later stages of the game more successful. He managed to do this in two of the 4 games, but not in the other two. And so to the 5th! Iain got a great lead and played the game really well to do so. Dougie was giving 100%, but just wasn’t getting the breaks he needed. At about 9-4 Iain’s lead was looking unstoppable and not only was it looking that way it was, but Dougie still didn’t make it easy and Iain had to fight for every half point. However his dander was up now and he crossed the finishing line with a dead weight shot to the back to win 3-2. It was a great game to watch. Dougie was really giving it everything he had at every moment with great pace, whereas Iain’s speed was deceptive…..he’s slower than he looked! Only kidding – in fact I can’t believe Iain didn’t get MOTM, but………………

Last on were the No.1 strings with Kev (Moran) playing Chris Ferguson. Both men were desperate to win and you could see the pain on their faces if they lost any rally. Chris’s face was the most contorted as Kev won the 1st game 11-4 with all the focus of a Ford Focus dealer focusing on selling all the Focus’s on his car lot!* (*the format of this gag was nicked from Blackadder!). Chris looked even more annoyed after the 2nd as Kev kept up the pressure. It’s fair to say that (up to this point) this is the best I’ve ever seen Kev play. His long game was fast and straighter than ever, his shots were tighter than ever and his determination (and focus) were excellent – also his speed was even quicker than I’d imagined it could be and he really showed me that developing this game could make his squash career move a good few steps forward. He looked set to win the 3rd game and even had a couple of match balls. But talking of determination Chris wasn’t for giving up. He wrestled back the 3rd game on the tie break and then seemed to really get into his stride. His shots to the front backhand were unbelievably tight, again and again, and his movement and retrieving were dogged and improving by the rally. Chris got a good lead in the 4th and Kev knew there was no coming back so he threw the end of the game and prepared himself for the 5th. There were some great exchanges at the start of the game with both players moving well, however Chris was inching ahead rally by rally and you could see the confidence course through his game. Chris stuck to his plans, Kev looked increasingly frustrated and the match slipped away from us 3-2 (MOTM has to be to Chris for the great comeback).

So with all those 3-2 matches things could have easily gone our way, but unfortunately they didn’t and we ended up losing 7-17. Chilli for dinner, so no veggie food for me: I therefore had to take matters into my own hands at this point and steal all the nan! I left soon after and what do you know there was a curry and a beer in the fridge waiting for me at home. Thanks the wife!