Tuesday 16 December 2008

Results of 2008 Winter League 3

Another very busy league with 16 leagues and a record 97 players involved. However, the colder weather seemed to bring on a number of injuries and so total games played was down slightly at 161.

The results of the league are here ..... 2008 Winter League 3

We had the most competitive league 1 for some time, with all but 1 games played and Chris Mair scoring 22 points in 5th place! Tony Gribben managed a very impressive 2nd place in his first foray into the Grange top flight. Good to see two Roberts (Kevin and Ian) returning to the leagues with four straight wins in leagues 4 and 16 respectively. And namesake Peter was also unbeaten in getting promotion from league 6. Other players gaining promotion with an unbeaten record were Will Henderson, Robert Denholm, David Gillespie. Joanna Cowie, Darren Hall, George Adams and Jamie Halcro-Johnstone.

Alastair Ross (89) leads Jonathan Frame (85) in terms of total points scored. They are among a group of 6 who have managed a maximum 15 games so far. Overall we have 51 players who have played 10 or more games over the first three leagues - no wonder the courts are still busy.

With a few injuries and departures for foreign climes (good luck to Russell Langley who heads off to take the Vancouver squash scene by storm!) we are back down to 15 leagues this time, but still great support.

For those interested, here is the full set of new leagues ..... 2008 Winter League 4

Good luck and enjoy your games!

Dougie Brown

Monday 15 December 2008

Teams Xmas handicap (Sun, Dec 14, '08)

7 regulars turned up to contest the bragging rights this year. The champagne went to Brian Buchanan who won all 3 of his american-handicap matches, conceding just the one game (to Christy). Russell Langley and Chris Mair claimed joint second. Ali G turned a simple round robin into a conundrum worthy of countdown ;-)

The Xmas turkey was Dougie Brown, freshly recovered from injury, who had to smuggle the dodgy beer past his wife to avoid being asked how he did.

Thursday 11 December 2008

Firsts @ Colinton (Wed, Dec 10, '09)

Grangers took a 17-6 victory against now tradional sparring partners Colinton 2.

Mike H made an impressive 1sts debut with a 3-1 win after an edgy first game. Chris crumbled under the pressure of Mark Lords deft touch but strong wins from Ian, Brian and Mike P sealed the deal.

This takes it to 7 victories out of 8 for the first half and should see Grange 1 turn the year in second position. Bring on 09. (C Mair)

Monday 8 December 2008

Firsts away v ESC 3 (Tues 02.12.08)

In descending order, AH won 3-0, IG won 3-2, CM won 3-2, BB lost 3-2 and MP won 3-0.

It was a close run thing with ESC 3 fielding what looked to be their strongest team. Some good banter and some of ESC's finest cuisine much enjoyed afterwards. A good win on the night for the Grangers.

Overall 4-1. 19-9 on points.

C

Grange 3 versus Waverley 3 Friday 5th December 2008.

The Grange 3 juggernaut roles on with another 17 point haul to add to the last four weeks of excellent results.

At no 5 Russell Langley played a very good, fast, hard hitting match against Richard Nettleton. Some resistance from Richard in the third game but overall Russell too strong, running out to a 3-1 win. A 6-1 winning record for the first half of the season.

At no 4 we saw exactly the same pattern for Jonathon Frame against Neil Aitken. Jonathan played fast but controlled squash and was almost always in command with only one game of sterner resistance from Neil allowed to slip away. A comfortable 3-1 win. That's three good wins and one loss for Jonathon in the first half.

At No 3 Mark Dutton had a convincing 3-0 win over John Allan. For a change he came out of the blocks properly and picked up a 9-0 with only a few handouts conceded and will hopefully be able to keep in that mindset. A number of unnecessary first game losses was the only real blemish in a good first half of the season that saw a 5-1 winning record.

At No 2 Christy had a very entertaining match against the unorthodox but very effective Neil Tulloch (hang on...that's Christy too..). The term unorthodox doesn't so much refer to the style of play as they both are clearly very accomplished players, but more to the highly unusual directions that the ball takes around the court from all of the reverse boasts and and other such malarky. A togh one for Christy against a good opponent and a 3-1 win the result. That's a 2-2 record for Christy in the thirds so far.

In one of the most entertaining matches of the season, Patrick Langley took on Chris Jeffrey at No 1. ny casual observer walking past the court at almost any time during this match would have been forgiven for thinking that the result was a foregone conclusion in Patrick's favour. While Patrick seemed to be well in control and looked to have plenty to spare, the older Chris was a lather of sweat and puffing his near-to-last breath at almost all times. Somehow though he always managed to stay in the rallies and return some of the pressure and gradually started to bring some mistakes out of Patrick's game. This particular author has now seen quite a few of Patrick's matches and minileagues and has certianly never seen him miss as many volleys and drops as he did in a quite inexplicable sequence in the third and fourth games. All credit to Chris though for working so hard to help make that happen. The final game was a see-saw affair and could have gone both ways but Chris discovered a liking for the front backhand corner and played a series of near unreturnable drops that had Patrick in knots quite a few times. Nobody begrudged Chris his moment of Henman0like fist pumping when he finally took the last point since he'd worked so hard against an opponent who would have beaten him on most other occasions. A 2-3 loss for Patrick on the night and a 3-1 winning record for Patrick in the thirds in this half of the season (all other matches 3-0 too..).

Looking at the ESSA points table, we stil don't seem to be able to shake off ESC and Inveresk so those two matches will be key to teh second half and we'll be looking to do better than the 7 points we took off both those sides.

Saturday 6 December 2008

Thirds @ Waverley 3 (Fri, Dec 5. '08)

#5 Russell Langley bt Richard 3-1
#4 Jon Frame beat Neil Aitken 3-1
#3 Mark Dutton bt John Allan 3-1
#2 Christy Looby bt Paul Tulloch 3-1
#1 Patrick Langley l Chris Jeffrey 2-3.

Good banter in the bar over lashings of spag bol, Tall Paul kept us entertained with his tales of the casinos and online poker, so much so he persuaded Jon to head off to the Fountainbridge casino after playing.

Wednesday 3 December 2008

Seconds v Edinburgh Sports Club 4 (Wed 2.12.08)

Tough, close matches against the Sports Club. Sadly they took 3 out of 5.

Pete Cockburn gallantly played mini league match followed by team match against Chris Milne at 5. A big effort by Pete, but by the fifth, this was to Chris's advantage and he took it from us 3-2.

At 4, Stokesy had 4 match points in the 4th. Les Wilson clung to win 3-2.

Al lost 3-0 to Shane Presley at 3 and should have stayed at home until properly recovered from illness.

Our no.s 1 and 2 did the winning, with Will Kerr playing a fine game to beat Andrew "Slasher" Snowden 3-0.

And at 1, Mike Hall's debut appearance for Grange surprised a few people, not least his opponent JJ Tait, who was truly psyched. Tremendous pace and accuracy, plus some devious serving. 3-1.

There was great support on the balcony from both teams, plus Looby, Langley, Frame, Pollock, Marshall, and more.

Two and a half pints later, JJ had recovered from crushing defeat, his spirits riding high once more, Stokesy had put those harsh (but correct) reffing decisions behind him, Mike Hall turned out to be a lager drinker (perhaps that's the secret) and we recorded a season record on the bar tab.

These guys were beatable. Next half we'll have them AND drink their bar dry.

Monday 1 December 2008

Seconds @ Waverley 2 (26 Nov 08)

Waverley had an experienced team out and although some of the games were close Waverley always seemed to have the edge. A strong performance from Alan Stokes saved us from being grannied.

Will v Niven simpson 0-3
Tony v Douglas kempsell 0-3
Robert v Mike reid 0-3
Alan v Paul osinski 3-1
Michael v Damien Noade 0-3

Grange 5, Waverley 20.

Seconds @ Abercorn 1 (19 Nov 08)

A belated match report.

Grange 2 met a slightly weakened team due to Abercorn having players out so we won convincingly.

Will V A Mckenzie 3-2.
Tony v Bob Taylor 3-2
Alan v G Williams 3-1
Mike v Kevin Mcoll 3-1
Peter vK robertson 3-0

20 points to Grange.