Racketball home v Waverley 14/5/13

First up tonight was Derek Addison playing at number 6. Derek was complaining before the start of his game that he should have been playing further up the order since he beat some of the other players at practice on Saturday and he soon managed to deliver a 3-0 victory to make his point. We will however still ignore any such whining in the future.

 

Brian went on court at the same time against frequent Grange visitor Domenic. As Domenic is used to playing on the Grange courts he seemed to get overly upset at some of his misses and the gallery was amused to see the stamping fit in the 2nd set. We will be ordering a pram and some toys for the return visit at Waverley.

 

Andy Whitelaw made his team debut and for the first 2 games appeared to be narrowly in control edging out his opponent by the odd extra point. Question marks will be asked about Andy's fitness however after losing the next 3 games and coming off the court looking like he had spent several hours too many in the sun. Never the less, a good performance in his first match.

 

In the battle of the John's, John Matthew narrowly edged a 3-0 victory despite trying his best at several stages to throw away convincing leads. The spectators were at one point wondering if John was having trouble seeing the ball but the thought passed as we realised he couldn't possibly get hair in his eyes and with his opponent just returning after several weeks injured, it couldn't be sweat either.

 

Mike Douglas took on Brian and eased out another 3-0 win. Unfortunately I didn't see much of this match but I am told the 2 competitors looked roughly the same in ability and physique. I would note however that Brian has been drawing his pension for several years now.

 

I was last up against Mike and despite my best efforts on the night I was well beaten by a better and more mobile opponent even with a Waverley umpire trying his best to assist me.

 

After retiring to the bar, Brian Sloan took on the chef's apron for this week and did a fine job of providing a two course feast of tomato soup followed by cottage pie. Voting on the best meal will happen at the end of the season but Brian has put himself in the running. Thoughts are also turning to a charity booklet of racketball tea recipes being sold towards court refurbishments.

 David Grieve

RB Captain.

Racketballers at Hatton (Mon, May 6)

Leading the line at Hatton was Alex Stewart making her RB team debut.  And lead the line she did as she took out Ian Evans 15-11 15-9 15-12. Mike Wagner at #5 also played Ian and cancelled out Ian's previous win by losing him15-12 15-13 15-7.
   We finally got Ian Evans off court and big Derek Addison took on Sean at #4 and promptly went one game down. Undeterred, The Big Man fought back to 14-14 in the second and using the new-fangled 2-clear rule, snuck it 16-14. Ditto for the third, except this time he bottled it at 14-14. And normal service resumed as he lost the fourth 9-15.
   Our best left-hander Brian Sloan took on Malcolm Mitchell at #2, contested the first well 12-15 but the second and third slipped away without getting into double digits.
   Capt Grieve faced Danny Pollok at #1 and lost 5, 9 and 13 so it looked like he was just about to get a game off him if it went on any longer.
   Late but better than never, Christy took on Mark at #3.Christy was in control for the first two but at 13-8 in the third, decided some skid boast, corkscrews and screwing around in general were in order as a 3-0 was obviously in the bag. Cue major egg on face a Mark refused to oblige with any more tin shots and brought it to game ball twice before converting 17-15.  The fourth took on a surreal feeling as the ball burst (a first in my 3 years of racketball experience) but we played on as if it was a cold squash ball, evey shot being a drop and Christy won on a dead weight drop. And then had to play a let, to guffaws in the gallery.
This time he screwed the nut to get 13-1 ahead before screwing around and Mark was too knackered to avoid the tine so 3-1 to Christy in trhe end.
  It might be obvious that I didn't see the other matches, hence one line from the marking sheet is all I can come up with.
    Tea consisted of cheesy pasta and cottage pie, pizza, bhajees and somosa's  topped off with lemon or chocolate swiss roll.
   The banter was scintillating as Malcolm held forth on the price war in West Calder now that Tesco Extra is taking on Scotmid... but will never compete with the local Ernie who delivers 2 litres of milk for £1.10.
Alex Stewart looked shell-shocked by her intro to mens team match chat, as the ladies match teas usually bring up quite laddish chat by comparison. Next match topic at Hatton will be crocheting and knitting.

BMI Caption Competition

Put your entry in the comments



Entry #1 from Bill: "He's bored me"

Scottish National Squash League - update

All the decisive matches have been played by the original deadline - but not published yet by SSRL.

The deadline was extended to May 12 and the playoffs postponed to Sun, May 26. The top four qualify for the playoffs.
Below are the up-to-date unofficial standings as per the SNSL statto/anorak:
Any further questions, just ask.

Kings of the countback - National League epilogue

Our Franco's Grange national league squad have completed their program of matches this week. An excellent win on Wed at home v Giffnock (on countback) was followed on Thurs by a double-header at Mannofield where we also won on games countback. A 32 point haul from 2 matches!
Below is the summary of the first half results...


 and here is the 2nd half results, including the overall tally.
   ESC lead on 134 points and we are one point behind. The top four at the split go on to the playoffs on Sun, May 26. ASRC2 are almost certain to go through with 130 points and 2 matches remaining. The main dangers to us going through are Dalgety Bay and ASRC1.
   Kevin Moran remains unbeaten all season while Dougie Kempsell has only lost to Simon Boughton. Allan Hamer, Donna Cruickshank, Aoife Kerrin and Pete Cockburn have all contributed vital game wins to get us countback wins while Georgina Jamieson, Cath John and Gordon Sloan have all shored up the team at vital stages of the campaign.

Looking forward to us playing in "the third half" providing we make it to playoffs.

Racketball home v Dalgety Bay (Tue, Apr 2)

First up was Jordan Fleming v Kenny Mitchell, Jordan just had too many boasts in his locker and Kenny's drop is his go-to shot but it was a bit rusty tonight. 3-0.
  Andrew Beames was playing sublime racketball and his oppo Richard was playing squash for the first two games so it was looking like an easy stroll for Andrew when I left it after 2 games. Imagine my surprise when I came back 20 mins later and it was in the fifth game, which Richard ran clear on.
   Downhill from here, Brian improved as the match went on against Stuart Black but just couldn't push it to 4 games. Christy was even more disappointing against Craig, staying with him up to 9 or 10 all but then mentally conceding in the closing points.
   David Grieve was MotM, taking a game off Neil Bennett and cooking up some great beef chilli.
Talk over tea was discussing some of the characters of the Fife squash courts and the nuclear weapon that Dalgety Bay bring to every away match.
     One Dalgety Bay player is a look-a-like for a celebrity who is B&F- bald and funny... whereas the player is also B&F in his own words: "big and fat". I give you...
....
Stuart Black vs The Pub Landlord
...
but which is which?

Grange 5 home v Waverley 4 (Thurs Mar 29)

The final scheduled game of the season almost never happened as our selectors forgot it was going on. A lot of frantic phoning on Wednesday night eventually mobilised 5 players although none of us really knew who was playing until we all arrived.

 

In team order, Craig Watt took on Yvonne Ferguson at 5 and was put to the sword by Yvonne's more accurate placement to go down 0-3. Ali Ross took on Brian Scott who showed his experience to also edge out a 0-3 score for Waverley . Angus MacPherson, probably the youngest player ever to have turned out for the 5's went on at 3 against Mike Gibson. Angus was in fine form and always in control to take a 3-0 win for Grange. David Grieve saw off the hard hitting Bernard Chizange 3-0 whilst victory was sealed by Andrew Beames with another 3-0 win over Martin Robertson. Overall a 12-8 win after 5 friendly and enjoyable games.

 

Back at the clubhouse the evening was extended by Franco's sending our Pizzas to the Dean in error however chat turned to the up and coming Racketball season (which kicks off next week for the Grange with a home tie against Dalgety Bay on Tuesday) and also to the BMI Cup, the eagerly awaited end of season tournament where most of our seasoned players hope to exert some revenge on our younger fitter colleagues with a weight and age favoured handicap system. (4th May from 2pm. Posters on the notice boards)

Pos	Player	Rubbers	Games	Points			Player	Rubbers	Games	Points
1	Andrew Beames	1	3	27			Martin Robertson	0	0	14
2	David Grieve	1	3	27			Bernard Chizanga	0	0	11
3	Angus MacPherson	1	3	28			Mike Gibson	0	0	13
4	Alastair Ross	0	0	18			Brian Scott	1	3	28
5	Craig Watt	0	0	10			Yvonne Ferguson	1	3	27
Total		3	9	110				2	6	93
Competition Points		12						6