Thursday 16 May 2013

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.

Monday 6 May 2013

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.

Sunday 5 May 2013

BMI Caption Competition

Put your entry in the comments



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