2nd team finished off the season with a trip to SSRC where we hoped to trash their promotion hopes, they needed 18 points to guarantee finishing ahead of Giffnock in 3rd spot.

Anyway, first on court was Paolo, up against David Irvine at 5. I had a tough game against David in the first half so I thought Paolo was in for a difficult match. I only saw part of this match and although it was fairly close, Paolo was a bit too passive and allowed David to take the initiative. (Lets hope his football team do the same on Sunday!). He went down in 3 straight games but did manage to shed a few of the pounds he’d put on in Australia.

Gordon was on next and true to form he’d forgotton something, this week it was his shorts, so it could have been an embarrasing game, luckily for him I had a spare pair to save his blushes. He was playing Chris Farrell who had pumped him at Lloyds so I wasn’t expecting too much here and my fears were confirmed as Gordon was thrashed in the 1st game 15-4. He looked up for some advice and I suggested he keep it a bit tighter and throw in a few of his deceptive drops. Well, that’s just what he did and what a turn around, he took the 2nd game 16-14. The 3rd went the same way and was again very close. 2-1 to Gordon, could this be his game of the season? …… Indeed it was, he finished off in style with a 17-15 to take the match 3-1 and MOTM.

Henry was on next against Joe Hely but I didn’t see his game and he didn’t say too much about it, humped 3-0 probably sums it up!

Colin was on against Billy Garbutt who he’d lost to 1st half and things weren’t looking good as he was rubbing in ibuprofen gel to his shoulder before the game started. He never got going in this one, and went down in straight games, yet another to be dealt with in the closed season, this time tendonitis, to add to the Gilmers Groin and athlete’s f***y.

I was up last and wasn’t expecting too much with a pretty nasty blister on my foot, however my first game was close, and pretty much resembled a bare knuckle fight, no finese, just standing toe to toe thrashing the ball back at each other. Although I lost this game I was gaining in confidence and took the 2nd one easily, also varying the shots and throwing in a few lobs and drops. The third game was back to bare knuckles again and I lost this one, so a change of tactics was called for and again it worked, 2-2. By the 5th, my blister had developed a pulse all of it’s own and my movement had slowed and I lost it 15-13.

So, overall we lost 16-5 and it looks like SSRC pipped Giffnock by 1 point in the end. Never mind, we had some great curry and Gordon actually stayed for the after match banter, mainly about his trip to Bali, orangutans and naked saunas! Now let’s get an end of season p*** up arranged before Paolo heads off to Oz.

Brian

So first on tonight were Jason Lang and me. Jason was playing Paul Sweeney at No.5 and I was up against Mark Ford at No.3 – now I’d recently sneaked a game off Mark in a National League match (when he wasn’t looking) so I was pretty sure that he’d have both eyes on me this time and I wasn’t too surprised to find that he was watching me like a hawk. Sean marked for the first time in a year, proving he can mark even without glasses (I checked a couple of times by deliberately cheating!!).

By the way, fair warning to all my future opponents, I’ve decided I’m now old enough to start developing an old man’s high lob serve! And I must say it’s really funny to see good players struggle against it. I had a couple of free (and very funny) points against Mark doing just that and now all I have to do is remember to get the serve more!

Mark was a gent on court and despite being several levels above me, he did give me a good run around, so I have to thank him for that! Anyway I was only trying to stay on court longer than ‘t’other Jase’ and that was proving easy. Jase was off well before me in the 1st and 2nd games and we were both 2 games to nil down; so when I saw him come off early in the 3rd my mission was complete and not a second too soon as I was getting chopped up 2-10. I managed to rescue just one more face-saving point to make it look like a respectable overall 11-9 12-10 11-3.

Anyway suitably impressed that I’d stayed on much longer that that whipper-snapper ‘young Jase’ I was really annoyed to find out that he’d won the 3rd game (13-11, lucky if you ask me!) and was 1-2 down! Now I look like a chump!!

So on goes Kev (Moran) against Peter O’Harrow (!) at No.1 and Kev was back to full fitness and re-taking the team’s No.1 spot (as Dougie was injured this week). Pete was obviously having a few problems of his own and was labouring around the court. Mind you he was 6-3 up before Kev realised that a short ball was the ticket. Eight points later it was 11-6 to Kev and apart from two trademark O’Hara “rockets into the nic”™, the 2nd game was much the same, so 11-2 to Kev. Pistol Pete decided that enough was enough and it was silly to risk injury and carry on and he retired at this point, which was a pity as I’m sure it would have been a good match to watch with both men at full tilt.

Bloody Jase was still going on the other court and had taken the 4th 11-5!

Dougie (Kempsell) went on next at No.2 v Cumbria’s Paul Bell. Now it was Dougie’s turn to have the team injury and he was labouring around the court. Paul won the 1st comfortably 11-5 and the 2nd 11-2 before Dougie had to retire.

Jase finally finished. Unfortunately he lost 3-2 to Paul 11-8 in the last, but undoubtedly got man of the match for his comeback – and he had a cold! Still annoying though!

Sean went on last against Malky Watt and I’m not entirely sure his tac-tic of trying to out-run the fittest man in squash, was working – still fair play to him for trying! He asked for a couple of outrageous ‘lets’ that he was nowhere near, so it was good to see that not much has changed in his understanding of the rules. But with his ‘won 12: lost 6’ ratio for the 2011/12 season I think it’s one of his best years ever. He lost to Malky 11-3 11-4 11-8, but then again so have most people this (and most other) season.

So with 2 courts and 2 retirals it was early to the bar to see Man City beat Chelsea and also watch Dougie eat so many beans that Kev wasn’t looking forward to driving him home!

So David Lloyd Renfrew finished 3rd in the top Division, but congratulations to Newlands for winning the league and now it’s time to plan and look forward to an end of season night oot. Sean and I reckon we’ll go to Edinburgh for the team night out – anyone else up for it?

(oooh look almost 30,000 hits on the web-site! Thanks for having a look!)

So with no match tonight this is the alternative Wednesday match report!

It all started at Whitecraigs when I was coaching a young lad called Steven. He’s only about 9 but he’s pretty good and I got him running around like a good ‘un for an hour! He came off exhausted and happy. And his dad was very impressed with the improvement in his squash (I was equally impressed with the wad of 50s he paid me with). So a beer in the bar later and I was watching the Whitecraigs LT&SC 5 th team.

Dick McClure was moving with grace and elegance around the court (apart from the grace and elegance part) and was playing a guy from Bowfield who had one of the best returns of serve I’d seen in ages. Anything that was remotely volleyable was being dispatched. He struggled a bit at the back of the court though, but Dick couldn’t put him there often enough to get the advantage and lost 3-1.

Next up was another student of mine David B for Whitecraigs and he was on against Jonny Wright (Alan Wright’s son; Alan is ex-Kelburn and David Lloyd Renfrew and played Div. 1 squash). Jonny returned the serve just like his team mate and now I could see where it came from as Alan (Jonny’s dad) does exactly the same thing. I remember playing him at Kelburn (last millennium) and I served everything behind his back for the whole match (after he dispatched my first two serves, by standing so close to the side wall that he could volley anything, brilliantly!). He never changed his return position and so ended up playing some poor returns and gifting me the match!

David played well and kept his concentration all the way through the match, which was very pleasing to see. He was getting his serve dispatched a bit too often and I suggested the same tactic that worked for me all those years ago or to hit the wall earlier. He won the 1 st easily but the next two were both very close. However Jonny was making a few mistakes at crucial times and also giving away too many strokes by hitting it back to himself so David took full advantage and won the tie 3-0. Good result – MOTM so far!

I had to go at 1 match each, so didn’t find out how it finished. So next up was a pizza and some TV programme called Kidnap and Ransome. Hey! Isn’t that lead character Eddie Shoestring of off the 70s! Did you know that the TV show ‘Shoestring’ became ‘Bergerac’ (according to Wikipedia – which of course could mean anything!).

Whilst watching the DLWE 1st team reports come in. Very funny!

Henry went on at 5 against Jonathan Naylor at the same time as Gordon faced Neil Cameron at 3. Henry got the better start by taking the first game while Gordon lost his. The Hamilton guys both won the second game. Gordon won the third while Henry went 2-1 down. It was first blood to Hamilton as Neil won the fourth for a 3-1 victory. Henry had pulled it back to 2-2 as I went on against John Perella at 4.

Left hander John looked pretty impressive in the warm up and I was hoping that it was going to be one of those rare occasions where the player can’t put it all together in the match. I was disappointed as he comfortably took the first game. The second was much closer and I got into double figures before he put me away for a 2-0 lead. The third was even closer but I was finding more and more winners and was getting him to work harder and he was making errors which were missing from the first 2 games. I won the third and carried my form into the fourth to win that too. The fifth was nip and tuck up to 8-8 and it was anybody’s game. I got to 10-8 and felt that perhaps I was going to complete a great comeback. John had other ideas though and he came back strongly. I couldn’t respond and after I played some tired shots, he took it 15-11.

Henry had also lost the decider so the match had been lost with the score already 12-5.

Colin was on next against Stuart Cameron. Nursing a sore shoulder, he appeared a little tentative as he lost the first game. He came back to win the second but Stuart was hitting a great length and with the ability to kill it at the front, he was making it very hard for Colin. The next 2 games went Stuart’s way and it was another 3-1 defeat for us.

Brian was on last at 1 against old campaigner David McAleese. Brian made short work of David in the first game and it looked as though we could get a consolation victory. But David was just warming up and when he had got into his stride, he had turned the tables on Brian and had him doing the chasing. Unless David was going to tire, there seemed no way back for Brian. And David didn’t flag and he completed a 3-1 victory.

Their 18-7 win kept Hamilton on track to win a very competitive 3rd Division.

Robert W

Well it was a strange old match last night as a couple of the ties were quite one sided, the first being at No.5. The Western No.5 had told no one that he was away this week, but he must have been as he wasn’t there! So we won 3-0 – well played Jase (Lang).

Sean and I went on at the same time again this week. DK and I had a good match at No.3 and the score line in the first two games doesn’t really belie the rallies we had (11-1 11-3). The 3rd was a different story though and as I found my concentration had completely deserted me and I was thinking about dinner, footie and beer when Dave went 9-4 up! The bottom line was that I was hitting too much cross-court and Dave was picking these off with his Inspector Gadget like reach. Fortunately I got back to the programme and not a second too late, as the game swung back to 10-10; and with the momentum with me, I was lucky to be able to finish things up 12-10.

Sean (Norris) was on court when I was on so I didn’t see his game at No.4 against Andy Neeley, but looking at the score sheet he was only ever behind twice (and only for 1 point each time), so he must have dominated the match. Good result 11-4 11-4 11-6 (MOTM to Sean).

Kev Moran and Logers were on next at No.2 and I joined this at 1-1 (11-4 9-11). Kev wasn’t moving particularly fast tonight and was playing lots of shots that Logie was happy to chase. Logie had a tactic of serving behind Kev’s body on the backhand side and Kev decided to slap a few returns into the nic with a bizarre swing that I’d never seen before (it looked very impressive so I must try it!). The 3rd game saw a very tight 11-13 to Logie and it was now obvious that something was wrong with Kev’s movement. Logie wrapped things up 2-11 to take the tie 3-1 (MOTM to Logington)

Last up at No.1 was Dougie (Kempsell) v Steve Halliday. Steve didn’t say anything or complain, but he just didn’t look 100%. Don’t get me wrong he’d still have thrashed me, but he certainly wasn’t his normal shot-making, nippy self. He lost the 1st 11-3 and although things were considerably better in the 2nd he was still off the pace and lost it 11-7. The Western lads suggested to Steve (tongue in cheek) that if he played ‘eyes out’ and ‘thundered around the court’ this would be the answer! We’ll never know as Dougie wrapped things up 11-3 in the last for a 3-0 victory and a 16-3 win for the team.

So we retired to the bar to discuss squash TV, Rangers & Greece (and whether we could do a swap!), my hair (!) and Jethro Bins standing on an inflatable Pilates ball on court and doing figure of eight volleys?!?!?! Apparently he holds the World Record for this – I wonder who he wrestled that title off?!?!? Then we listen to DK entertain the troops with his one liners for the rest of the night as the lads shovelled chilli back and even the veggie got something to eat!

Well Logie, Owen (Hadden) and I are off to Belfast for a tour this weekend with a match against the Civil Service on Friday Night and a tournament at Ballyearl on Saturday. Not sure I’ve played this much competitive squash since the 90s! Maybe try and get a weekend match report out!