Broadberry Sports

Wednesday 21st March 2012 – 1st Team
Newlands needed 6 points to win the Division 1 West league and with Peter O’Hara, Paul Bell, Mark Ford, Malky Watt and Paul Sweeney (pic left) they were looking odds on to do that.

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!)