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!