Friday 27 January 2012

Ali Ross in Barbarians/HWU Doppelgänger Mishap

Apologies for the tardiness of this report for last week's Barbarians match - I've only just recovered enough to be able to write it. Last week's team was Richard Nisbet, Mike (me), Pete Young, Matt Pearson and Sicknote Grieve.

We arrived at Heriot-Watt on a wet and windy evening to be told that they had forgotten to book courts. But not to worry, they'd called Ali Ross who was trying to get some bloke called Pete Cockburn - all was in hand. Thinking it was a shame for Ali to get drawn into this - given how much else he does for the club - I texted Ali to say not to worry and that I would deal with it. But Ali (sounding a little confused) checked that the Accies courts were free and sent me the number to say we'd head there to play. The HWU guys then set about working out who could head into town to play and who still had homework to do. Things got a bit more confusing when they said they'd spoken to Ali Ross who was trying to sort transport. Above and beyond the call of duty I would say. I was just about to call Ali to apologise for all the hassle when a fair faced youth introduced himself as Ali Ross - playing number one for HWU. What're the chances of that?

As one of their team hadn't done his homework yet, Dave Grieve stayed to play his game at HWU and the rest of us headed into town.

By the time we arrived Dave had texted to say he'd won 3-0. And it wasn't long before Matt has shown great steel and determination to grind out a 3-0 victory; 2-0 to the Barbarians.

Peter was next on court and took the first as I went on court. When I came off having lost 3-0 in reasonably tight games against a player just too good, Pete was just 2-1 up. His opponent was beginning to get his range and it was soon 2-2. But in one of the grittiest performances of the season, Pete prevailed and we had won the match - fantastic result.

Lastly was Richard against Ali's doppelgänger. This was a bit crazy as Richard went down in 3. That's points. The young Ali was simply too fast and we wondered what the h*** he was doing in Division 5. Poor Richard didn't even get the chance to get warm.

Still, a great victory 14-8 against one of the Division's top sides.

Looking forward to next week already.

Mike

p.s. If it makes Richard feel any better, he might like to know that their Ali Ross won the previous week playing number 5 in Division 1 - and hasn't lost a match since last March !!!

p.p.s We had to buy our own tea - typical students.

Mike

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