RB home v Linlithgow(Tue, Jun 28)

A warm sunny evening, Linlithgow rolled up around 7:45. Ali Ross was first on with John Ralph and set a new PB for rallies scored, 11-15, 3-15, 8-15. Off he went to the kitchen to conjure up some food magic.
Mike Douglas made his team debut against Captain Keith Barrett. It was close, he lost the first but took the second and the also swapped he next two games before Keith got his nose in front in the fifth to take it 15-12. Christy at #2 was in the battle of the paddies as he played Paddy Duff. He snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in the second, having been 14-10 up! Got cuffed in the other 2.
Dean at #1 faced John Stephen. The tactic of just dolly-ing the ball back was working early on but then John stopped tinning it and cruised the first two. The third was a royal battle which Dean took to 13-13 but John got the nod from there.
At #4, Brian Sloan played Matt McIlroy and this was another grinding slog with some marathon rallies. They swapped the first two games but Mark got the third convincingly and another royal battle for the fourth which Mark got.
Overall 3-18 which is 3 points more than we got when we played there.
Ali Ross served up stuffed pasta on a bed of salad with lots of sauce and everyone discussed Wimbledon, squash and racketball while munching and pinting away.

A trip down memory lane....

2006 East Mens C Winner - Christy Looby (properly attired in club colours) with Raymond Ross R-up.

2005 East Mens A Winner - Richard McIntosh; East Mens C Winner - William Kerr (improperly attired in West Ham colours?)

Racketeers home v ESC(Tue, Jun 7)

ESC fronted up with Graeme Hartop, Les, I?, Alastair & John. Guy Tulloch played John at #5 and kept his man on court for the regulation 50 minutes. Jordan was slumming it at #4 as he had cooking duties - he was 2-0 down against Alastair, got it back to the fifth but unlike Lazarus, he went down for good in that game.

Dave Grieve played Les and these guys were really playing squash with a larger ball- lobs, drops, serving out of the hand, asking for second serves after hitting the first one out, this match had it all. Except we lost.

Dean outlasted his opponent I? 3-2 for our only win. Christy blazed his way around the tin (again) to succumb a bit too meekly to Graeme Hartop.

Jordan magicked-up some chicken & veggie fajitas so the food bill was £24 and the bar bill £56! A good night's entertainment, topped by the story of how ESC had bandited against one team whose number 1 fancied himself, fancied himself so much he argued for a silly stroke and then Simon decided he wasn't going to see the ball for the rest of the match.

At this point in the season, halfway, we need to take stock of our leading position... in our own Gratrix... the scores in red are somewhat fictitious as I guessed/made-them-up. If Team 8 hadn't been scared of playing us, we'd have beaten them 18-0 anyway!

Racketballers at Dean(Wed, Jun 1)

The local derby's are coming thick 'n fast with The Dean providing the opposition this week and Edinburgh Sports Club next week.
6 players on both teams this time, we won 4-2. I arrived for pizza leftovers and the post-mortem so I don't have any blow-by-blow accounts. Apart from our #1 Steve Eyles taking a blow of a ball to the body... still won.
The Dean line-up was missing Ross Anderson but had Matthew Hunter, James Birkhead & Ian Walford aganst our line-up of Steve, Dave Grieve, Brian Sloan, Jordan Fleming, Dean Wood and Guy Tulloch.
The banter over the food was mainly to do with the French Open and Andy Murray. Matthew challenged me to a drag race afterwards, my trusty 125cc steed versus his 600cc Kawasaki crotch-rocket. I'm still spitting out the rubber bobbles and fumes left as I saw him disappear into the horizon ; -)

Racketballers home v Waverley(Thur 26/6/11)

Jordan Fleming was fresh from taking out the club champion and the club champ r-up this week on the squash court(*). So true to form he sunk without trace against Colin Cruickshank, who is the de facto Waverley #1 racketballer.

Brian Sloan made his racketball team debut at 7pm versus Neil Kempsell. The first rally was a long one. The next rally was a loooooong one. The next rally was this lllLLLLoooOOOO....

..

..

OOOooonnnNNNgggGGGG. So were all the rallies.

They finished one hour 20 minutes later... Neil wanted to concede at 19-20 in the fifth but was told by Brian to stay on court until he was two clear.

Luckily the 3rd court came free. Dean saw off the Waverley #5 3-0.

Steve Eyles had a long 3-2 debut win over Bruce Ferguson... and took one for the team when Bruce hit him with the ball. Jordan played a second time at #7 and beat Peter Cochrane 3-0.

Guy Tulloch at #6 was 2-1 up on Dominic Risi when his opponent conceded with a ballooning elbow. Guy played best-of-3 with Peter Cochrane, an even match considering Peter has only ever played once before.

Christy finished at #1 against John Allan who should probably have been at 3 or four on the line-up was it not for the captain being late picking up Dean and his curry out on Gilmerton Rd and matches already having started out of order. If this was squash, we'd have to dock ourselves 18 points.

Our first win of our first campaign. All this training must be paying off.

Dean supplied a hot Hot HOOOOTTTTT veggie curry with naan and lashings of rice. Talk turned to roasting Donald Trump[1], [2], plus meeting Lucinda Ledgerwood off The Apprentice and the children's panel, eclectic topics as usual!

(*) The ladies club champ and the ladies R-up!

Here is The RacketBall Matrix, at least as far as our matches are concerned, as requested in the comments...

Ex-liverpool player/manager in club champions final

One is a competitive, plain-speaking and hard-tackling player... and the other is Graeme Souness ;-)

Club champion is a demon in the kitchen....

Nicholas Watt is group executive chef of Roka and chief operating officer overseeing global expansion for the restaurant.

From sophisticated foodies and celebrities to those just looking to enjoy a good meal with friends, Watt consistently impresses.

A New Zealander by birth, Watt moved to London in 2004 to take the position of executive chef at the flagship Roka. In 2005, a year after opening, the restaurant was named Oriental Restaurant of the Year at the Tio Pepe Awards.

Allan Hamer is three-time Grange Squash club champion. He purports to be working off the coast of Africa just now, but he has a secret second life, putting on a kiwi accent and cooking sushi.
"You must have spied a lookalike as I've been on a rig off the coast of Cameroon"
Aye, right. All the time you told Ali G you couldn't play for the first team 'cos you were toiling offshore, you were actually schmoozing with the foodies in Lahndan.
Interviewed in TheOnion.com, his wife Charlotte complained that "Allan doesn't spend much time in their kitchen" and that when she asked him about smelling of cooking oil, he'd said "No, that is crude". (Additional reportage: Bill Marshall)
(OK, it has been a slow week on the squash courts and racketball was postponed a week)