Sunday 15 March 2009

Firsts @ Colinton Castle 2's (Fri, Mar 13,'09)

As the week and the season drew to a close, GRG1 took to the stage against the mighty colinton 2 up at the castle in a decider for 2nd spot in league 2. Colinton rained off the 5th string match in good time, leaving Mike Perring to come out the undisputed winner as beer taster in chief from up high on the balcony.
Chris Mair was up against stuart at 4 on a very bouncy court but managed to calm things down enough to come away the 3-1 victor. Ian Green was next up and took the second string game 3-0 before Brian Buchanan took on Hamish McLeod at 3. Brian fell to a 2-0 deficit but stepped up a gear in third and ran away with a 3-2 victory in the end.
Last match of the night was a much anticipated clash between Mark Lord and Alan Hamer. There were some epic rallies throughout the match with drives and deft touches being traded from all angles but ultimately Alan tired and Mark snitched it to come out the 3-1 winner. So the night and the season ended on a high with GRG1 doing enough to secure an 18-8 victory, second spot and to take their place in the top flight next year.............happy days. (CM)

Tuesday 10 March 2009

Grange 2 v Mammas 10.03.09

Our last match of the season, we went out on an high. Packed balconies and a big supporters turnout from Looby, Langley, Cockburn, Brown, Stokes and Mr and Mrs Hamer.

The scores were:

Will Kerr v Roger Moore 3-1
Mike Hall v Scott Carey 3-1
Robert Pfab v Stuart Williamson 3-1
Al Gordon v Lindsay Muir 3-1
Tony Gribben v John Rae 3-0

Stunning squash all round, with a decisive finish from Mike in the closing games.

5-0, 20-6 on points. So where do we stand? It's all down to the Sports Club now. Fingers crossed - watch this blog or keep an eye on http://essasquash.co.uk/Oa3.txt....

Good luck to Grange 1 on Friday for their 2nd place showdown with Colinton. Anyone wanting to see the team that has taken us to the dizzy heights of division 1, they're playing at Colinton Castle, Friday 13th at 7.00.

Monday 9 March 2009

Grange 2 @ ESC4 (Friday 06.03.09)

A big match for the seconds. Kerr, Hall and Gribben all out of action. The Sports Club wouldn't postpone, so we turned out as best we could. Super subs Van Lienden and Langley made a good dent at 4 and 5 against Gordon Sloane and captain Les Wilson, 3-0 and 3-1. Van Lienden was looking particularly tenacious, and Langley very solid. At 3, Dougie had a tough time against the deceptive Shane Presley, losing out 7-9 in the 2nd and 3rd games, 0-3. Robert recovered a 0-2 position to 2-2 against JJ Tait at 2. Both men wearing attractive headscalfs, and spending much of their time in the corners - they could easily have been mistaken for the cleaning crew. Robert ran away to 7-1 in the fifth, Grange looked set for victory, but JJ pulled off a massive come back leaving us with 2-3. Al met the mighty Leszek Stelmachowski at 1. Al battled it out to go 2-1 up, but succumbed to attrition, and the end result 2-3. Overall 12-15. A huge effort was put in by Grange players, and whilst not a win, was under the circumstances a fair haul. JJ was in high spirits after his escapology, the pasta was excellent, and a good night was had by all. Next week we need max points....

Saturday 7 March 2009

Firsts @ ESC3 (Wed, Feb 4,'09)

GRG1 lost 1-4(correction 2-3) and by 11-16. Ian Green won 3-1 against Barry, Brian Buchanan lost against Fraser 2-3, Chris Mair lost to Drew 0-3, Mike Perring won 3-1 against Ian Gray and Mike Hall lost 1-3 to Nicol. ESC looked to have a strong team out with two new faces at 1&2. A disappointing night but looking at the score board I don't think it will sink the ship.

Last match against CC2 next friday with as strong a team as we've had out this half. Should be good for the points. (CM)

Friday 6 March 2009

Thirds home v Waverley 3's (Thurs, Mar 5,'09)

Last match this season, we went out on a high.
1 Alan Stokes v Paul Tulloch 3-1
2 Mike Scott v Allan Baird 2-3 (threw a fetlock in the fifth and had to retire)
3 Pete Cockburn v Neil Aitken3-0
4 Christy Looby v John Allan 3-0
5 Mark Dutton v Richard Nettleton 3 - 0

Mark could do little wrong against Richard, with all the tricksy stuff coming off. Christy powered John off the court while Peter was 2-7 down in the third and closed it out without losing anymore points.
Mike Scott is heading back to Orkney, he won't be able to catch many sheep for a while after crocking himself again... taking nothng away from Alan Baird's win. Stokesy and Paul Tulloch had an interesting match, Alan's placement versus Paul's power with a lot of rallies getting bonus points for comic relief.

Overall result 19 - 5 including ref points............... roll on Div 4 next season. Mark counted that the team used 16 players all season, so well done to all our reserves and folk that didn't quite make it but pushed us pretty hard in the mini-leagues.

Wednesday 4 March 2009

Results of the 5th Minileague

Another very busy league with 15 leagues and 94 players involved, and despite a number of injuries, a record equalling 169 games played! Well done to leagues 3 and 4 where all 15 games were played - demonstrating the competition for team places these days!

The results of the league are here ..... 2008 Winter League 5

Unbeaten players this month were Richard Van Lienden, Will Henderson, Mike Slack, Iain Macnab, Chris Braun, Alastair Ross, Mike Dougall and Tim Ferguson. There remains a strong core of players who are consistent in getting all their games played - out of those will shortly be selected a "Minileaguer of the Year" - watch this space!

For those interested, here is the full set of new leagues ..... 2008 Winter League 6

Enjoy this last winter league - there will be summer leagues starting after the court refurbishment - I am hoping for a repeat of the popular leagues last summer.

Enjoy your games

Dougie Brown