Grange 5 host Watsonians 4 – Thurs 04/10/2012 @ Edinburgh Academy

The nights were drawing in, the wind was blowing a hooley, and it was is dark and dreich as we assembled at Edinburgh Academy for the opening match of the 2012/2013 Squash season and our first opponents were Watsonians 4’s.

First up for the Grange making his team debut was Craig Watt and his opponent for the evening was Barrie Turnbull. The first decision was to agree to play a let should any balls hit the nasty hole in the front wall of court 1. The game commenced shortly after and Craig got into action straight after receiving serve, his instinct was to return to the T after returning the serve and stare resolutely at the front wall determined that nothing shall pass, unfortunately he didn’t see Barrie follow his return off the side wall and he was in perfect position to get a royal welcome to team squash as Barrie let fly off the back wall and with unerring accuracy find Craig’s coccyx, job done, stroke awarded and Craig had won his first point in team squash. What followed was some tight shots above the tin and some not so tight shots from various parts of the court and Craig took the first set 9-5. Barrie then stepped up his game in the following sets and his superior nuance and court positioning meant that he took the next 3 sets 9-2, 9-2, 9-0 for a 1-3 loss.

On the other Court Bill Marshall was playing at number 4 and his opponent for the evening was Iain “the matrix statistician” Clark, with Bill desperate to shed his moniker of “Bill Nil”. The game was played out with a lot of grunting and chastising for hitting the tin from both players and Iain emerged as the winner, 3-9, 1-9, 5-9. Never mind Bill, Nil doesn’t have to mean zero, it can also be “Nil a Japanese rock band”, “Nil: A land beyond belief, a graphic novel from 2005” or “Nil – North Island Line, a proposed extension railway of Hong Kong.

David Gibson was playing David Hutton at No. 3. David was up against a strong opponent and soon lost the first set 2-9, a strong rally saw DG take the second set 9-7, unfortunately DH regained the upper hand and took the remaining 2 sets 4-9, 3-9 for a 1-3 loss.

I was up on the next court playing Roger Weir at No.2. The first set, set the tone for the match with both players trying to end the point at the earliest opportunity with a combination of good and poor shots in equal measure and I went on to sneak the set 9-7, after Roger missed what would have been a glorious overhead that hit the wrong side of the bottom line. Roger took control after this and took the next three sets 6-9, 5-9, 6-9 for a 1-3 loss.

With the match won at 4-0 to Watsonsians, it was the turn of the No. 1’s to do battle for personal honour. Stephen Davey was playing Derek Davidson. Derek’s tight control at the front saw him take the first set 6-9, Stephen turned thing round in a marathon second set which he edged 9-8, unfortunately despite some strong chasing down Stephen was unable to improve the situation and lost the match 6-9, 9-8, 5-9, 6-9. A higher error count than his opponent was the difference in this match.

Match results including ref points was 20-6 to Watsonsians. So congratulation to Watsonsians for a winning start to the season and a could do better next time improvement notice to the Grange. “There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time – Malcolm X”

Back to the Grange for Beer and Pizza, which was eventually finished off, as we were determined that there was no wastage. Talked tuned such diverse subjects as the Higgs boson large hadron collider and innuendo in children’s TV programmes, which led me to remember the following script from an unseen episode of Rainbow with innuendo all the way, which may or may not have happened. Many thanks to the following link for the information - http://rainbow.arch.scriptmania.com/rainbow_tv_episode.html

Script from Rainbow

Up above the streets and houses....paint the whole world with a Rainbow!

The sketch opens with Zippy peeling a banana ...
Zippy: " One skin, two skin, three skin, four"
George: " Zippy, where is Bungle? "
Zippy: " I think Geoffrey is trying to get him up"

We see a view of the door and hear Bungle moaning from behind it.

Bungle: "Geoffrey, I can't get it in "
Geoffrey: " You managed it last night "
Bungle: " I know, lets try it round the other way. Ooooooh, I've got it in"

Bungle and Geoffrey enter the studio with Bungle carrying a hammer and peg kit.

Bungle: " Would you stick this on the shelf, George "
George: "I can't reach, you'll have to stick it up yourself ".

Geoffrey (to camera) " Hello everyone, today we are talking about playing "

Bungle: " Playing with each other, Geoffrey? "
Geoffrey: " Yes Bungle, do you have a special friend that you like to play with? "
George: " Yesterday we played with each other's balls. Are we going to play with our friend's balls today?"
Bungle: " Yes, and we can play with our twangers as well. "

Geoffrey (to camera) Have you seen Bungles twanger?

Zippy: " Oh I have, I showed him how to pluck with it. "
Bungle: " It's my plucking instrument. "

Geoffrey asks the audience if they can pluck like Bungle

Zippy: " I can, I'm the best plucker here. "
George: " And I'm good at banging. My peg's hard isn't it Zippy? "
Zippy: " Well of course it is, your peg wouldn't go in if it was soft. "

Geoffrey: " Let's get back to Bungle's twanger. "

Bungle: (excited) " Oooooh Geoffrey, we could all play with our twangers couldn't we? Let's play the plucking song. Rod and Freddy can get their instruments out and Jane has got two lovely Maracas. "

Singers Rod, Freddy and Jane enter.

Freddy: " We could hear you all banging away "
Rod: " Banging can be fun. "
Jane: " Ooooh yes, and I was banging away all last night with Rod and Freddy. "
Freddy: ( looking sad ) " Yes, but it broke my plucking instrument. "

Rod: (to Jane) " Do you want to blow on my pipe while I'm twanging away? "
Jane: " Oh no, I was banging away with Freddy last night. But would you like to play with my maracas?
Zippy; " No, let's just pluck away with our twangers. "
George: " Yes, it doesn't matter what size our twanger is. "
Zippy: " I've got a big red one. "
George: " I've only got a tiny twanger. But it works well and I like to play with it. "

Geoffrey: (to viewers) " Well, have you got your twangers out? And remember you can bang your balls at the same time. If you haven't got any, ask a friend if you can play with his. Now, let's all play the plucking song. "

Everyone in studio: "Pluck, pluck, pluck along, we're going to pluck all day".

Apparently it was recorded in 1979, when the show had been running for several years.
It was never intended to be shown on TV. In fact, the sketch was performed simply for the amusement of the cast and crew, and would have been lost to history, were it not for the
OBA 1 Christmas tape put together by Thames TV engineers.

Match report – Neil Love

Pos	Player	Rubbers	Games	Points			Player	Rubbers	Games	Points
1	Stephen Davey	0	1	26			Derek Davidson	1	3	35
2	Neil Love	0	1	26			Roger Weir	1	3	34
3	David Gibson	0	1	18			David Hutton	1	3	34
4	Bill Marshall	0	0	9			Iain Clark	1	3	27
5	Craig Watt	0	1	13			Barrie Turnbull	1	3	32
Total		0	4	92				5	15	162
Competition Points		6						20