Two's home v Tyne (Wed, Mar 6)

Firing on all cylinders

 

When the media talk about a Grand Slam this weekend, it’ll not be rugby they’re referring.  Grange 2 generated a dynamic display of squash on Wednesday night to take the maximum number of points from Tyne – currently above us in the table!  The relatively young Grange team, playing at home, were clinical at times and took all their chances.  The result should cement our place in Division 3 for another year as we battle for 4^th spot in the next few games.  A win like this reminds us why we love to play the sport - well done boys!

 

Forbes – Got us off to an excellent winning start in just 3 games.  The wheels were in motion at this early point in the evening.  10/10

Wallace – Bruising encounter with Graham Morrison.  Victory sealed 10-9 in the third.  10/10

Walker – Taking the first two games relatively easily.  The 3^rd was a battle but the momentum was there to convert the win in 3 games.  10/10

Sloan – Best performance this season with everything (particularly the drops) working well.  Delighted to get the monkey off the back.  10/10

Grinton – Fought through 4 games versus Alan Russell.  The backhand working well – generating too many nicks to mention.  10/10

National League 2012/13 Standings

There have been 9 rounds played so far. The 10th and final round takes place on Sun, Mar 17 at Heriot-Watt Uni. The top four go through to playoffs on Sun, April 20.
    As you can see, the top six clubs are in contention for the 4 places with only Inverness completely out of contention. Scroll down/across the window below to see detailed results.

National League- home v Heriot Watt (Tue, Mar 5)

With a sprinkling of social players gathering in the balcony, we took on the tryos from the National Squash Academy. First up we had our own alumnus of that academy at #1, Douglas Kempsell, pitted against Jamie Henderson.Douglas got off to an early lead but Jamie found his game and pegged him back in the first game. It went to extra points and Douglas was perhaps fortunate to take it 15-13. Jamie was firing down some big forehand winners but Douglas had the consistenc so the next 2 games went his way more comfortable and with it, the match 3-0.
 Aoife Kerrin played for Ireland at U-17 level and 7 years later she faced her modern counterpart Scotland representative, Claire Gadsby. The first was very close but Claire edged it 14-12, they exchanged the next 3 games without either player establishing dominance. At this point Claire match fitness took over and she won it 3-2.
  Pete Cockburn faced  Kyle Gribben at #3 and was outplayed by the youngster's touch and accuracy in the first game. The next two games they matched each other point-for-point and  went to extra points before Kyle edged them both. 0-3.
The tie was now poised at 1- with Kevin Moran v Michael Ross to decide the destination of the bonus points. Never in doubt with Kevin limiting his opponent to a handful of points in each game.
  Overall we won 8 games to their 6 which gave us a valuable 3 point win bonus.
Over baked tatties and soft drink, the discussion was the Nani sending off in the UCL tie with Real Madrid and whether Kempsell could continue his fine form into the National Championships at HWU on Sat after pushing Alan Clyne to five games in the North of Scotland Open last Sun.

Thirds at Colinton 4's

Date:	28/2/2013
Teams:	Grange 3 vs Colinton Castle 4

Pos	Player	Rubbers	Games	Points			Player	Rubbers	Games	Points
1	Mike Gore	0	0	20			Kim Byers	1	3	27
2	Donna Cruickshank	0	1	14			Stuart Keane	1	3	33
3	Matt Pearson	0	0	17			Eric Donohoe	1	3	28
4	Angus MacPherson	1	3	27			Mike Halpin	0	0	16
5	Jonathan Norrie	1	3	27			no player	0	0	0	Forfeit
Total		2	7	105				3	9	104
Competition Points		7						12

GRG2s Vs Dean 1 (27 Feb 2013)

Noisy Neighbours

Wednesday night saw Grg 2's make the short trip uphill to Dean. In spite of an ill Dougie Brown, we had a strong herd of Stags for the fixture. 

At 5th position, Allan (Annie Lennox) Stokes bagged a 3-1 win. According to Stokes, "everything went right" in the 4th game - enhancing the confidence of this shy & retiring type for the remainder of the season. Good work.

Forbes won at 4th position. The scoreline flattering Forbes slightly, for it was a tight, tough game.

Walker's game featured a few loose shots which were capitalised by the opposition but on the whole, a solid performance for our No. 3, taking it 3 games to 1 & bagging the most points of any player on the night. 

Despite a win last week, Captain Sloan stumbled to a 3-0 loss. Not leading by example! 'Nuff said! 

To Grinton. Exquisite drops and lobs. Despite losing the first, Grints managed a 3-1 result to round off a 17 point haul to take back down the hill. Well done boys. (report Sloan)

Pos	Player	Rubbers	Games	Points			Player	Rubbers	Games	Points
1	Michael Grinton	1	3	28			Drew McKenzie	0	1	25
2	Gordon Sloan	0	0	15			Matthew Hunter	1	3	27
3	Duncan Walker	1	3	32			Richard Maspero	0	1	22
4	Ian Forbes	1	3	27			David Thompson	0	0	14
5	Alan Stokes	1	3	30			James Birkhead	0	1	22
Total		4	12	132				1	6	110
Competition Points		15						6

National League Super-Saturday at Inverness: 16 Feb 2012

National League Saturday as all teams involved converged on Inverness Tennis & Squash Club.  An early start for squash if there ever was one as we all met up at the Grange at 6:45 in the am!!  Travelling up was Dougie Kempsell at 1, Kev Moran at 2, myself (Pete) at 3 and Grange's newest lady Aoife Kerrin to make it 4.

We all piled into my big Mazda and rolled out in the dark. Conversation was fairly minimal as most of us were still asleep, some of us staying that way all the way to Inverness!! It finally started to get light just after perth giving us a fairly pleasant drive up through the snowy highlands to our final destination. Grange were first to arrive!
We were welcomed up to the bar area where we slumped on the big leather couches enjoying the view over the tennis courts a we watched as the rest of the teams assembled one by one.  Before long the bar area was full of a whos who of scottish squash.  Dougie was enjoying the banter, Kev had the poker face on, Aoife seemed unfazed while I hid behind a newspaper!

Before long bodies statred moving and the first round of matches got underway.  Our first opponents were Dalgety Bay who were fielding a particularly strong team of Alan Tasker, Iain Tennent, Neil Bennet and Elspeth Young.

It was one match per court so it was the ladies up first Aoife vs Elspeth.  The young Elspeth had been on devastating form against us in the first fixture.  Could Aoife restore the balance.  Thins looked good as Aoife took the first with some pin point volleying and dropping leaving Elpeth stranded on many occasion.  Elspeth came back with some good drving to take the next 2.  The third 16-14!!  Elspeth took the lead in the fourth to go 10-6 up with a match ball.  Aoife saved this and powered back as she had down in the previous games and levelled 10 a piece only to serve out and then miss the next return of serve to lose out 1-3.

Dougie took on Tasker next in a high octane battle.  Tasker really putting everything into it to produce some stunning squash.  Unfortunately Dougie seemed to be really enjoying this and just lapped it all up and powered through to a fairly confotable 3-0 victory.

I was on next against Neil Bennet (former Grange Open finalist may I add).  I didn't play too bad but didn't have enough for Neil.  Think I got 8 points in the last game.  Lost 0-3.

Last on was Kev in what would be the decider against big Iain Tennent.  A tasty one this turning into a right ol' battle.  Tennent was on top form with his touch up the front not to mention his brutal hitting leaving Kev on the chase and the back foot alot of the time.  Kev struggled to get into as Iain really seemed to be on form.  Iain took a 5-0 lead in the first as Kev finally started to play his way in.  Iain held on though to finally take it 11-8.  Not a happy Kev.  Kev levelled by taking the second and then took the lead going 2-1 but Iain was not going away as he battled to take a second game and win the team match!!  Not a happy Kev!!!  The tie was gone along with the bonus points but ever the professional Kev powered through to take it 3-2.

DBY win 11-6

At half time we were treated to some fine food by our hosts.  Chicken curry!  Just what you need to set you up for some afternoon squash!!

In the afternoon sesh we were playing Inverness.  Dougie needed to exit sharply and was on and off court before most of us knew what had happened.  Who he played I do not know but short was made of this one. 

I went onto the show court against Ian.  Feeling not to bad after my brief enbcoutner with Neil in the morning I was quite up for this one and raced out to 8-4 lead.  Feeling confident which experience tells me is the pride before the fall. So it proved as I lost it on extra points, I didn't make the same mistake when the situation repeated in the third but that was the tank emptied and never got into the fourth. Aoife had a right battle on her hands and with an injured foot, she still managed to bring home the bacon in the fifth.
Kev was untroubled as Inverness sportingly shuffled the order to give a few more of their club players an experience of the big time.
 GRG bt INV 3-1 (13-5)
This probably will be a double header as Inverness can't make a return match at Grange so a 13-5 results helps our cause no end.

Grange 3rds @ Colinton 5's (Fri, 8th Feb)

A successful night for the extradinarily youthful Grange 3rds, emerging victorious by 17 points to 6.   Well….youthful on the whole….a couple of ageing Loobys and Duttons dragging the average out a bit…..

First up at no5 was the new Grange sensation, 14 year old Angus Mcpherson against Gordon Robertson.  Not only does Angus possess a whole bunch of squash skill (and youthful legs…always handy) but also has a mature squash head on his shoulders.  Gordon was playing good squash and there were plenty of lengthy rallies but was he was no match for Angus who restricted him to just a handful of points per game.  1-9, 2-9, 1-9 to Angus.

Colin Williamson played an excellent match at no 1 against the useful CCS stalwart John Brown.  Good squash all round but Colin's placement and particularly his crisp smacking of the ball proved too much for John and he ran out a 5-9, 1-9, 2-9 winner.

At No 3 Christy was slightly hampered by a leg injury in taking on Derrick Simpson.    Christy was hitting the ball well enough but Derrick was playing an excellent hard-hitting game that would have had Christy stretching at the best of times.  Still a competitive game but in the end a 9-4, 9-2, 9-3 loss for Christy was about as good a result as he could have hoped for.

At No4  Aoife Kerrin continued her good contributions to the mens' teams with a 1-3 win over Derek Wilson.  A comfortable 1-9 win in the first followed by a 9-0 reversal in the second momentarily gave the Grange crew a sinking feeling that it was all about to go west, but she came out in the third game and resumed control and ran out 4-9 and 2-9.

In the "exhibition" match at No2 the evening was completed with Mark Dutton facing Mike Halpin.  Textbook squash it might not have been but, hey, who needs textbooks.  Not to say it wasn't of a good standard but unorthodoxy ruled the day with plenty of tricksy shots from both sides and plenty of YouTube aerobatic moments.  All good fun and lots of humorous exchanges on court.  Mike took the first 9-7 and very nearly had the second with Mark just nicking it 8-10.  Mark on top in the third at 3-9 and the fourth was good and close but ultimately 6-9.

The evening rounded off nicely with a plateful of pie'n'beans from the fine kitchen that the CCS folk run.  Overall 4-1, 17-7 so good points staving off relegation (Report: Dutton)