Broadberry Sports

The British Open will be brought to Hull for the first time as Hull City F.C. owner Assem Allam signed a three-year contract to sponsor the “Allam British Open Squash Championships” (pictured left).

Jahangir Khan flew in to give his seal of approval to the Tournament that made him an iconic name in squash. Jahangir won the event 10 times in his career, when it was the most prestigious squash tournament in the world.

Also present were current PSA No.1 Nick Matthew, WISPA No.2 Jenny Duncalf as well as Nick Rider (CEO of England Squash & Racketball) and former PSA No.1 Lee Beachill (now CEO for the PSA).

The event has been absent from the World Tour calendar for two years due to lack of sponsorship, but this new deal will see the legendry tournament  go first to the O2 Arena in London next May and after that to Hull for 2013 and 2014, with Assem Allam thought to be keen to extend it’s stay in Yorkshire. He said “I would like to see this association continue for many years,” at the signing ceremony. “I thought it was time to bring squash’s most prestigious event to Yorkshire so I have committed myself to three years. I’m a great believer in sport being the most powerful tool to help communities. It makes people healthy, to become members of a team, to accept winning and losing.”

Interesting one tonight against Glasgow University (away). The Uni team have lost the services of a few good players, but then again they’ve promoted some good players as well.

First up at No.4 was self proclaimed MOTM* Sean (Norris) who played Mhairi Charlton and when I arrived it appeared that he was having a tough time of it. Sean had won the first two by getting to 7-7 and then powering on………..

To see David Lloyd Renfrew match reports click here

To see David Lloyd West End match reports click here Read more…

Well a few shocks in the US Open as  Amr Shabana wins the PSA Title and Laura Massaro wins the WISPA Title.

The WISPA event saw Harrow’s Kasey Brown line up against Laura Massaro. Kasey had an amazing run to the final, beating Nicol David (World No.1) in the quarter final and Laura had beaten Jenny Duncalf (World No.2) in her semi-final, so both players were in sparkling form.

But it was Laura (Eng) who managed to pick up the title winning the final after coming from 0-1 down against the Aussie to win 3-1 in 56mins.

In the PSA event Amr Shabana also upset the seedings to win his 2nd US Open title. Nick Matthews (PSA No.1) was his opponent and although Nick was suffering from a leg injury he was still very much in with a chance. At 8-9 in the 1st game the video ref overturned a let decision (to a ‘no-let’) to give Amr game ball and he soon finished the game off. Nick got the match back to 1-1, but Amr then ran away with the last two games to secure the title 3-1. PSA Draw  & WISPA Draws here

To see the DL Renfrew report please click here

To see the DL West End reports please click here

It was a much more straightforward game for us this week as Newlands 2 came visiting.

Newlands have changed their team order policy this season and are playing a straight 1-10 in ability order instead of splitting their strength across the two teams in Division 1. As a result their 2^nd team was weaker than it has been in previous years and we’re a wee bit stronger.

First on at No.4 was Sean (Norris) against Peter Cumine. Peter’s game has really come on in the past couple of seasons (must be his trade mark training regime of staying up all night lifting weights with his squash playing arm at Newlands bar……….and various other bars!), but then so has Sean’s. This must also have been the lightest match up ever in the history of West Div 1 Read more…

Wednesday 28th September 2011 – 1st Team
Well Western 1 away for your first match of the season is never easy especially when they’ve strengthened their team with a new 1, 2 and 3 and I get to play Bert (aka R.J.Mitchell) at No.4

First up was me against Bert. Dave Mathie turned up to mark and I said “You’re brave!” which turned out to be prophetic!

(continued below) – To see all the David Lloyd Team reports Click here for Renfrew or here for West End

Read more…

Ramy Ashour must be pushing the World No.1 position again after an emphatic win over Nick Matthew in the British Grand Prix on Sunday.

Well I say emphatic, but Nick took the first game 1-11 so it was looking good for the Yorkshireman after just 8 minutes, but Ramy turned things on their head to take the 2nd game 11-3.

The 3rd game appears to be the crucial point for both players with the defending Champ (Ramy) going 5-0 up and then the World No.1 (Nick) getting back to 4-6. But it was Ramy who went on to win the game 11-7 and then finish things off 11-4 in 1 hour and 7 minutes; leaving Nick to comment “It doesn’t feel like I’m World No.1, he’s beaten me 3 times in a row. But I’ll go away and come back stronger….”

And do you know what? I bet he will be!  (click here for the draw)

As the Legends make their way to Aberdeen this weekend I can tell you first hand that if you go you will see some fantastic displays of squash. I was lucky enough to see them play last weekend at the St Georges Hill Club in Surrey and the squash was brilliant to watch. In fact I’d be amazed if all the players wouldn’t still do very well on the current PSA tour.

The skills were there in abundance and the desire to win certainly hasn’t left any of them – only injuries keep them from doing some serious damage against today’s top professionals!

leg-end & legend

I managed to meet Peter Nicol, Jonathon Power, John White, Simon Parke, Tim Garner, Stephen Meads, Nick Taylor not to mention the eventual winner Anthony Ricketts and had a thoroughly enjoyable time (I also met legends Ross Norman and Peter Marshall who made guest appearances over the weekend). And St George’s Hill squash pro Danny Lee (ex-world 28) helped us raise over £1K for the Food4Africa charity. Have a look the Legends Just Giving page if you’d like to get involved with building a squash court in rural town in South Africa as well as feeeding children.

I’d highly recommend you go and see them all in Aberdeen.

Tough match last night v Newlands in the Knockout Cup, especially when they brought in the Glasgow University No.1 to bolster their ranks.

I arrived slightly late to see Sean (Norris) against Newland’s Malky Watt. Sean was moving really well and was challenging Malky all the way. All the way to 14-14 in fact, but Malky just managed to hold him off to take the 1^st Read more…

The PSA Men’s Australian Open final proved to be an thrilling 5 set match between the World No.1 Nick Matthew and No.2 Ramy Ashour.

The two rivals have been closely contesting the PSA World No.1 spot for some time now and it’s Ramy who will be adding the Austrailian title to his world ranking points tally with a fantastic 12-14  11-6  10-12  11-8  11-4 win; which will put him back to the top spot next month.

Nicol David had a more straight-forward 3-0 win in her final against WISPA World No.2 Jenny Duncalf as she reserved her best squash for the final winning 11-8 11-4 11-6.

To see all the competitors stats, including Scotland’s own Alan Clyne (who unfortunately came up against World No.3 James Wilstrop in Round 2) click here

To see the men’s Draw/Results please click here and the women’s click here