Grange I @ Watsonians III (Wed, 13.03.07)

Tonight we were gunning for 2nd place against Watsonians. We meet 1st place Marcos next week.

Stokesy stuck in for 5 against Andrew Forrest - a tough opponent at no.5 - 0-3.
Gerald got 1-3 off Gordon Fruish.
Al got nothing but frustration off Jim Dougal 0-3.
Mike met his first half opponent, Ed Murray, and played patient, solid squash for 2 very close games, then pulled away in the 3rd to win 3-0. A good performance after 3-2 at home.
Allan H went 0-8 down in the first, found his land legs to level 8-8, but then lost 8-9. 3 games of speed, retrieval and attrition followed, 9-3, 9-0, 9-0.

Man of the match: Mike Perring

Overall 2-3 (8-13 on points). There was some great squash tonight. Our only consolation on the result is that we beat them more heavily at home! Watsonians have pulled away from us now, and Marcos will be uncatchable. Our objective for next week against Marcos is to secure our 3rd place ahead of Colinton-Musselburgh for promotion (we will need 4 points if they got 18 this week), and to have a good night! There's an outside chance that Gerald will put on the food, and there's £10 credit in the kitty to spend away!

Seconds home home v Linlithgow2 (Tue, Mar 6,'07)

Linlithgow have crept up on Bank of Scotland at the top of the table and our playing resources are getting frayed thru' injury just now so this was going to be tougher than when we ran them close in their gaff in December.

Peter Young stepped up from the thirds into the promotion cauldron with the seconds, against their athletic #5 Ross Halston. Peter played terrific stuff for the first two to push his man close and had nothing left for the third; 0-3.

Peter Tweedie also subbed up from the Thirds, went on against their youthful #4, he won the second 10-8 and traded two more games before shading the fifth. 3-2.

Peter Cockburn was 2 down against #3 Peter Cochrane and then turned on his best squash of the season (he won the third 9-0!) to level it but unfortunately lost the decider;2-3.

Mark Dutton faced #2 Ian Forshaw who has been playing all the tournaments lately and looked sharp. Mark pushed him in all 3 games but couldn't quite get control in any; 0-3.

Christy played their other youth, #1 Robert Purdie in quite a good match considering there were two left-handers jockeying for the same space. Robert got to some amazing retrievals and played terrific fading straight length from the front to go two up. Christy got off some good sharp shots of his own to go 8-2 up in the third but youth and fitness settled in and brought it back point by point to take it 10-8 in the end; 2-3.

Overall 1-4; 5-17

Man of the match: Tweedster, who has now won three five-setters back-to-back.

With Watsons 4 and C-Rooks 2 to play, we need to settle back to getting the bonus points and wrap up our promotion slot. (Loobster)

Grange I @ Colinton Musselburgh (Wed, 06.03.07)

A vital match, with Colinton-Musselburgh just behind us in 4th place, we really wanted to put some points between us, to finish in the top 3.

Dougie's back is not doing too well, but his loyal support continues to spur us on.
Christy parachuted in at no. 5, won 3-0 against a bemused John Stohlner, then shot off to play for Grange 2, minutes later. Thanks Christy!!
Stokesy was playing extremely well but went 2-1 down against Norman, both men were exhausted, but Stokesy put in a massive effort and came out on top 3-2.
Gerald met his first half opponent, John Hamilton - the only player in the league that appears comfortable with Gerald's eccentric court presence - John was inpenetrable this time, 0-3.
Al went 0-2 down against Richard Easton, and looked like cracking him in the 3rd, but it ended 8-10, 0-3.
Mike and Colin Grant played a fabulous decider. With Mike 0-9 and 6-9 down, it looked like Grange 1 were going to leave defeated, but Mike fought on to take the next 3 games and the bonus points.

Overall 3-2 (12-8 on points).

Men of the match: Stokesy and Mike for hard fought comebacks - turning a 4-15 defeat into a 12-8 win.

After tonight we are 27 points clear of Colinton-Musselburgh, which gives us a very good chance of promotion, but beware - they have 8th and 9th place teams to play, and we have 1st and 3rd. We need 10 more points to secure it.

We now have a battle for 1st place in our final 2 matches against our rivals Marcos and Watsonians. Both teams have easier teams to play than we do. Taking the first half results for the remaining fixtures would give final standings: 1. Marcos 261, 2. Watsonians 252, 3. Grange 248, 4. Colinton-Musselburgh 223. Beating these guys is a tall order, but not impossible.

Seconds @ C-rooks (Fri, Mar 3,'07)

John Graham was delighted to have night of squash as Christine was away at the Masters in Aberdeen. At #5, it was a battle of the masters with John and Sandy trying to win each rally in less than 2 shots. Sandy had the edge and John had to take second best in four; 1-3.

Peter Tweedie also doubled up from the 3rd team this week at #4. He must have played some fighting battle because it went to 5 and our man shaded it; 3-2.

Peter Cockburn found himself at the lofty heights of #2- he lost the first to Derek Wilson and in the second he started to get on top but it went to 8-8 and 8-10. Derek was winning the backhand rallies and closed out the third; 0-3.

Jonathan Frame made his seconds debut at #3 with a slow start to go 1 down. He lifted the pace and a long second saw Bob puffing to take game ball and out on his feet. Jonathan took the third to love and cantered the last 2 games; 3-2.

The bonus points were up for grabs between the #1's- John Simpson took the first, Christy blasted the second but as the medical doctor slowed the pace, the electronic doctor was found out; 1-3.

Overall 2-3, 8-15 Not too bad points considering we got 11 at home against them with a full team. Man of the match: Tweedie/Frame - the reserves contributed the bulk of the points.

Thirds @ Musselburgh (Tue, Feb 27, 07)

In rather typical Musselburgh tradition, at the appointed hour only John Graham and one home player were in attendance. At 7.30, they had their number 5 and their number 4 had just turned up to go on against John G. Chris Molyneaux completed our full complement (having made the trip by bus) just after 7.30pm and took the court against their number 5, Tom (The rest of their guys drifted in right up until 8.40!)

It turned out to be a cracking match with every-one finding their opponent evenly matched and it built up to perhaps the most exciting conclusion we have had to date.

John G did it again - raced in to a 2-0 lead only to lose out in 5 (In absolute fairness John had pulled the first back from 0-8 to win and his opponent only started to suss John's game in the 3rd!) (2-3)
Chris stole the first game against Tom (10-8) but was then edged (almost literally by his opponent constantly calling for lets due to his inability to get around Chris!) in each of the next 3 to lose out (1-3)
Stephen Davey had the marathon match of the evening with stamina a key factor as he went 2-0 up; was pulled back to be levelled at 2-2 and then got the better of Alan (3-2) - to see us quickly turn to Pete Young at 2nd string who had gone from 0-1 to 1-1 to 1-2 to 2-2 to be out-run in the fifth almost to the second that Stephen finished on the other Court (2-3)- both Stephen and Pete putting in sterling performances - (Every tie going to 50 minutes +)
Pete T got on to Court against Grame at 9.35 pm and was outgunned in the first before almost clawing back the 2nd (7-9). He slowed it down and grabbed the 3rd and was 7-7 in the 4th at about 10.15pm) when the staff who were getting extremely grumpy at not having got us out of the Sports Centre by 10.00pm eventually called for the premises to be vacated immediately and the hosts honourably conceded (not having had their team in place at the start time) to give us a 3-2 win at number 1 and a loss but a good point haul! (12-16)

Tweedster

Grange I v Hatton (Wed, 28.02.07)

We did well despite a creaking team.

Dougie has a slipped disc so is still confined to reffing and supporting from the balcony. The team solidarity must convert to a point or 2.
Christy won 3-0 and did delicious home made spuds and chilli too.
Stokesy had water on the knee, came up against the young David Tinning, and turned 1-2 down into a 3-2 win.
Gerald had a bad back, and did well to contain the older Nick Tinning 3-0, a good win.
Al was injury free, and won 3-0 against Alan Hove.
Mike had a cramping buttock, but still played reliable Perring Formula squash to crack the tough Malcolm Mitchell 3-0.

Overall 5-0 (18-2 on points).

Our results for this half have been good so far: 18, 10, 16, 18, 18, 18. But we now have our top 3 opponents left to play. Before tonight we were in joint 2nd, 8 points behind the leaders Marcos, and 10 points ahead of 4th place Colinton-Musselburgh. Next week we're away at Colinton-Musselburgh - a crunch match for us.

Man of the match: Stokesy, for going flat out for 5 against the man 4 decades younger.

Stokesy's confidence is riding high. So much so that he's taking bets on his forthcoming challenge match against Alan Hamer. Hamer's only handicap being a Grays Light Blue (wooden) racket. Stokes will be playing with his Dunlop (budget modern) racket. Date to be confirmed, but it should be a good night. Watch this space....

Seconds @ Inveresk (Thu, Feb 16, 06)

The team travelled in style to Colinton, Mark ferrying the bobble-hat wonders Todd & Suggers in his new old Honda Civic. Todd Papadopoulis, the greek gunslinger, took court at 5th string tonight due to having a dodgy back. He didn't seem hampered in his movement, unlike George Purves who didn't seem to move as freely as usual. Pattern of the match- Todd would slide a good high backhand down the wall and get in quickly with the volley on George's high rail. Picked up everthing at the front. 3-0.

Peter Cockburn moved up to #4 and got Robin Carse out of his comfort zone with a high tempo of play to clean up 3-0.

Mark Dutton was 2-1 up on Norman at #3 when his elbow relapsed into the tennis disease. It was a well disputed match and Norman came through in the fifth; 2-3.

Christy faced fellow leftie Sam Fearnley at #2 to try to grab the bonus points. Sam went short too early too often in the first and Christy put it away to go one up. Sam then grannied Christy in the second with a taste of his own medicine, booming left-hand drives. They also swapped the next two games and Christy was on his third wind going into the fifth. It went to 8-8, set two and having survived a few match balls, Christy put in 2 brave (read "desperation") boasts to take it 10-9; 3-2.

Gerald Suggett faced John Brown who was muttering about Christy avoiding playing him. Gerald took the first, John threw in a few good reverse angles which stumped the welsh wizard, it was 1-1. From here, Gerald played quality width and length, picked up everything and threw it back with interest in the shape of killer boasts to close out 3-1. Some unreturnable lob serves too!

We enjoyed the bruschetta and pizza and some banter about Christy's lurid pink phone. Man of the match: Can't really pick out anyone, The Whole Team. Todd for putting his body on the line and still putting in a performance, Peter C improved on 3-1 at home with a 3-o win over the same man away, Mark dug out 2 points, which was as much as he could hope for (as he said himself, even without the onset of tennis elbow, Norman would have won), Christy for stumbling over the line in a match he had no right to win and Gerald for a #1 string style of play. Overall 4-1; 17-5. Click Here for latest standings

It was a shock to hear how Simon Schotken(Inveresk #3) is in recovery for a brain tumour and our best wishes are with him. Puts everything else into perspective.