Sunday 24 January 2010

Two away at home v Edinburgh Sports 3's (Fri, Jan 22,'10)

The 2s were away at home on Friday night. With ESC courts being double booked because of the masters we busted the locks of the St Georges courts and got on with it!

As usual there was a chill in the air as the first 2 matches got under way. Tony Gribben went on against Kirsty Craig who despite her young age had plenty experience. Both were playing some tight shots with the first 4 games being shared. They battled on in the 5th neck and neck until Kirsty got to 7-5 lead with bags of support from her team mates. The grange man sucked it up though and battled on to take it 9-7 and the match. Great result.

On the other court our resident squash technician Mike Hall was waging war with Helen Macfie. The court was freezing with neither player willing to put any heat into things as the lobs died deep and the drops rolled out the knicks. Helen took the first in tight rallyless affair. Mike kept his focus and kept the shots tight and made some excellent pick ups at the front to turn things his way taking it 3-1

Pete Cockburn went on at 5 against South African Des Creasey. Sneaking onto the warmer of the 2 courts he kicked things off clinching a tight 1st game 9-7. The 2nd game was much the same with some awkward cross courts and corkscrew serves coming from Des helping him to get it 9-6. Pete fired into top gear in the 3rd taking it 9-0 only to let Des back in the fourth to level it. Pete screwed the nut in the 5th to take it 9-3 as Des ran out of puff. 3-2 to Pete.

Next door on the frozen court things needed heating up! Enter Robin Steel and fellow SLASHER Andrew Snowden. Bit of history going on here from robin’s days down at ESC as both went on court and proceeded to try and out do each other in the battering department. The ball was soon bouncing big and both guys were chasing everything in some relentless rallying. The big granger more than matched Andrew’s power and was reaching everything to help him secure it 3-1.

The No. 1 match was Mike Perring Vs JJ Tait with JJ looking to get the first ESC points on the board. The first game went to Mike as he fought back to steal it from under JJ’s nose 10-8. The second game was just as tight as JJ slotted away some excellent drops from the back to counter Mikes usual sleek touches at the front. Mike was leading until JJ went on the charge to get to game ball. JJ was fired up as Mike seemed to look out of things. Some more tight shots to the front along with some sweeping cross court backhands from Mike meant the ESC man chasing nothing as Mike fought back again to edge it 10-8. The third game started off tight again with it taking an age to get to 4-4. JJ was sitting at 5-4 for a while until Mike decided to finish things off by charging on a 5 point run seeing off JJ with confident dropping and some excellent cross court driving. A tight match with Mike taking it 3-0.
Overall, I make it 20-10 to Grange.
Back down the hill to ESC for masses of lasagne and a few beers. In my opinion the best scran in squash town! (Report: Cockburn, Eastern brother)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

We all know that ESC serves a high quality of food on a consistent basis, but does it really beat a Franco pizza on a Wednesday evening?


Also, was there any salad or bread with the lasagne?

Richard

Tony said...

Slight technicality, actually 20-6 I think. ESC4 suffer from not having a qualified marker.

Pete said...

Oh yeah. Plenty of bread and salad. The salad dressing had a real kick to it! would defo keep away the vampires!!