Broadberry Sports

So another tough one last night against a very solid SSRC side with Ali Prott at No.1 – and he was 3rd in the Scottish Nationals at the weekend, so that was going to be a tough one for ‘2 James Singhs’ tonight!

Mind you James and Chris (Murphy) also played in the Nationals at the weekend, so there would be some excellent squash on show!

First on at No.5 was Ollie (Millen) v Chris Holt. This was going to be a crucial one if we were going to stand a chance tonight. At 1-1 in games, I thought Ollie looked like he was the man setting the pace, but Chris can get a lot back and he did, so Ollie was finding it tough to break his game down. But he stuck at the task and the game-plan and managed to bring the match home 3-1. Great win from the man in the skintight shorts! (they’re XL!)

Next on was the game of the night as Chris (Murphy) took on Dan Wearing at No.2. Chris started well and looked in control after the first game, however, he opened the door early in the 2nd game and Dan stormed through it…………. with pace! There was a momentum shift right there and as the match went on Dan became more and more dominant. Right up until 10-4 match ball in the 5^th game. Well, at that point there was nothing else for it, but to try a few shots and that’s exactly what Chris did! To cut a long story short, a number of amazing shots later (and a couple of mistakes from Dan) it was 10-10 and we were all cheering Chris home! What a come back and no one can deny that Chris was MOTM tonight.

Harry (Anderson) took on Jessie Mills at No.3 next and I didn’t see the first game, but Jessie won it. When I started watching Harry looked in control, so something must have changed! This was a good match, but Harry always looked like he was going to win, and he did 3-1 – securing the ‘bonus match points’ at the same time. A good solid performance from Flash Harry, who is currently trying to get his Flash rackets back via an eBay bidding war (Flash Harry without his Flash rackets just doesn’t look right!).

James (two James Singhs) went on next with Ali Prott at No.1 and to say he was up against it would be an understatement. Having said that if you’re not 100% on it against James he can tear around the court and put anyone under severe pressure – and that’s what happened. James kept getting everything back and Ali made a few uncharacteristic errors, so all of the games were very tight, and James had the lead in at least 2 of them. Unfortunately for us, Ali was just about able to recover these situations, and ended up winning 3-0.

I was on last against Brian Robertson at No.4 and not much to report other than a 3-0 drubbing was handed out by Brian. Chris did his best to get me going and after the 1st game he said (I paraphrase), “Stop doing what you’re doing and try playing normal squash and you’ll give yourself half a chance!” – and he was right! The 2nd game was much better, I even get a game ball, but unfortunately couldn’t convert it, so 3-0 to Brian. (There was an ‘interesting’ decision that didn’t go my way at one point, but Brian put the next return-of-serve into the tin to even things up and it made no real difference to the game………. however, it did animate the match and I don’t think anyone watching was under any doubt of what I thought of the bamboozling decision!)

So into ‘The Back Bar’ for a very tasty casserole, even one particular athlete in the team (who thinks that pizza is a healthy option) agreed that, “the scran was actually delicious.” I even ended up playing a couple of games of pool against club leg-end Alex H and we are now 1-1 in the series up to 100!