Broadberry Sports

Worst timekeeper of the team is definitely ‘2-James Singhs’ – as we were waiting around for him to arrive for the trip to Strathgryffe……again!

So the lads piled into the car for the latest trip this season and the request to, “Put some of your old Led Zep sh*** on Jase,” did not fall on deaf ears, so we had a bit of ‘Hendrix’ preceded by ‘The Fratellis’ to get us going for the match (note to self – ‘download something they might have heard of for the next trip! Maybe some Zep?!?!’).

We arrived at Strathgryffe before any of the opposition, so we had a wee warm up before Angus (Forster) was told to go on first against Beth Moglia at No.5. Angus was cruising at the start of every game (5-0 in the 1st, 8-1 in the 2nd, 7-2 in the 3rd 5-2 in the….. you get the picture!), but when Beth decided to get motoring, she came right back at him, game after game, with some lovely 2-wall boasting. Right up to 2 games each! In the 5th Angus was 9-1 up and I thought, “You’re leaving it a bit late here Beth!” and I was right – so 3-2 to Angus and the first 3 points on the board! (thanks for giving him a start Beth!)  

I was inspired by Beth’s performance and thought, “If she can boast that well, then maybe I can get a few going as well.” I played Scott Adams at No.4 and I think I was lucky to get Scott ‘the Hulk’ Adams, as he seemed very angry about his game tonight! The racket got the brunt of his anger, as it got tossed from pillar to post in a couple of the games. In-between the games, our team were right by my side to give me advice, and some of it must have stuck, as I found myself in a 5th game, being roared on by Flash, Fiddy, Slim and Ang-postecogloul!! The 5th saw me get a great 6-1 lead and as the pressure shifted, all I had to do was hang on – which I managed to do to get the 2nd 3-2 win of the night.

(Surely MOTM for me tonight after that win! I may as well give it to myself right now! Right?)

Next on was Flash Harry (Anderson) v Ross ‘Red’ Lawrie at No.3 (my old DL teammate). Flash looked determined tonight, and he would need to be to make any in-roads to a man who beat him 3-0 last time. In the first 2 games Harry was at his attacking best, winning both games, but Ross forced his style onto proceedings in the next two game to take them both – and so to the 5th! Both gladiators looked very tired by 9-9 in the last game, but unfortunately for us, Flash just couldn’t hold onto the last few points and Ross stopped us taking the match winning points in a 2-3 epic.

(MOTM to Flash? No way…. still me, no one is taking that crown tonight, especially with Harry Barron and John Meehan still to play for them!).

Murph steps up at No.2 v Harry Barron. Chris is playing well at the moment but despite winning the 1st game, surely not well enough to win against Harry Barron? Sure enough, Strathgryffe’s Harry steps up the pace and it’s soon 2-1 to him – and despite a great 4th game to Chris, he surely can’t live with the pace of Harry. Hold on….Chris is up 4-2 in the 5th game and then goes on a ridiculous run of 6 points to go 10-3 up!  Harry has tightened up and is suddenly making a lot of errors, can Chris pull off the win of his season and secure the match points for the team? No! 4-10 to Harry!! But surely, it’s too far for Harry to come back from??? Another tough rally sees Chris play his trademark cross court short flick shot and take the match 3-2. The raucous crowd goes wild and this 3-2 has secured the match points for us!

Last on is 2-James Singhs v John Meehan at No.1. John was in no mood to have another 3-2 tonight – and he was lightning around the court. If James played anything except perfection, then John was all over it! James, however, played really well and his movement, pace and shots were great tonight. He was keeping in the rallies against all of John’s great movements and really made his opponent make the plays, but John just seemed to pull great shot after great shot and took the first two games. The 3rd was much tighter (in fact it was a tie-break) but in the end John secured the 3 points for his team with a 12-10 win in the 3rd.

Begrudgingly I’ll probably have to concede that Chris deserves MOTM tonight for us, and I’d say Ross for the Gryffe.

A late one tonight with 4 of the 5 matches going to 3-2 and so we gulped our pizzas down and said goodbye to the Gryffers. We were soon on the pothole-ridden road back to the club, with the tunes ramped up again – discussing what walk-on music we should get for Angus, and phoning in our first-round order to Davey at the Back-bar!

Angus must have been tired as he didn’t even stay for the darts! And James, Chris and I told Davey all about the 14-12 team win tonight and he was polite enough to listen to our ramblings!

Is it 2024 already? Well, a bit too much celebrating in the last 3 weeks probably means the squash has taken a dip and the belly has gone the other way?!?!

Off to Scoutstoun tonight to take on the Eagles and our team (determined to ruin my boot catch) all travelled together, which made for some good chat on the way over.

I was on first against Archie Niven and this wasn’t going to be easy! Sure enough I lost the 1st game, but it was closer than I though it may be and when I won the 2nd game I felt I had a good chance…….. right up to 6-10 match point down in the 4th! Still, I somehow managed an epic comeback to even things up. “So concentrate Jase and use all your experience and definitely don’t do that again!” Then, at 5-10 match ball down in the 5th (!) I was wondering if another epic come back was on the cards. Unfortunately it wasn’t and Archie won 11-8. Back to the drawing board!

On at the same time as me was 2-James Singh’s against Sandy Niven at No.1. James had won the first 2, then lost the 3rd and was 5-7 down in the 4th game – so this was definitely going to a 5th! Hold on James get some inspiration and puts in a few really hard rallies…. 6 hard rallies to be precise and he comes from nowhere in that game to win 11-7. (3-1 to James)

At No. 5 & 3 respectively, Angus (Forster) and Flash Harry (Anderson) were both on next and they lined up against Craig Rothnie and Finlay McGhee. I was marking Flash hoping for some fun & fireworks, but Flash was quite subdued by his standards tonight. The first Mizuki of the match didn’t even come until he was 6-3 up in the 2nd (!) game!!!! And, even worse, he tinned it – well this sent shock waves right into Flash’s core and he lost the 2nd 8-11! In the next two games Finlay played really well to stay in it and to draw out mistakes from Flash….. and so to the 5th. So, if Harry could concentrate for a whole game, then I thought he’d win – he did start concentrating! 6-1 up!! Bish-bosh! Then with another reactionary Mizuki’s (a winner this time) the concentration crashed again! Fortunately, for the Flashman, he had enough of a lead to hold on, and picked up 3 match points.

On at the same time Angus was 1-0 down against Craig Rothnie, but a few words of wisdom into Angus’s ears in-between the games (“Do you realise he’s left-handed?”) and he completely turned things round to take control of the next 3 games and win 3-1 ….. and secure the team match win to boot!

Last up was Chris (Murphy) v Murdo Mackenzie at No.2. Murdo is really coming on and he’s impressively strong and fast for someone so young. Chris however is tough to work out, if you’ve not played him before and Murdo found that out in the 1st game, but after that Murdo really got into his stride and made life very difficult for Murph. This was the big game for the match and Chris won it 11-8 – after this, Chris closed to door on the young man and used his experience to take the last game 11-5. However, I suspect with another year’s hard squash, Murdo will be a different proposition. (3-0 to Chris)

Difficult decision for MOTM but either Archie or Murdo for them and I’d say Chris for us.

An eclectic mix of pakoras, curry, pizza & chips and Fanta for dinner! We soon demolished this, so we took the trip home over the Clyde with a 17-7 win and the tunes ramped up to 11. Back to the south-side to ‘Whitecraigs Back-Bar’ to hear all about the clash between our 2nd and 3rd teams (this was where tonight’s real fireworks were apparently! Supplemental Match Report News – the 2nd team scraped it!)…… and Angus showed Chris how to play darts…..again!