Waverley 4 versus Grange 4 - Feb 3rd 2009.

A very good night for Grange 4 against a Waverley side who are the other serious contenders for the Division 5 title this season. Entering the night with a 27 point buffer (WVY4 does have a game in hand) we extended it to a 34 point buffer at the top with a 17-10 win.

Dougie Brown at no 2 opened the festivities against Donald Shearer. An excellent match of squash was characterised by tight wall shots, good width, good length, lots of volleying and lots of variety in pace….all the things textbooks tell you should be done. The first game was a tight stuggle with Dougie pulling away at the end to take it. Dougie further wore Donald down to take the second more comfortably but the third was a very hard fought match that could have gone either way. At 9-8 up Dougie's potentially match winning overhead volley just took a few atoms of paint from the top of the tin and Donald put the pressure right back on to come within a whisker of taking the game before Dougie finally closed it out. We folk in the gallery did have a momentary vision that the paint atoms were going to be the difference between 3-0 and 2-3, but Dougie is made of sterner stuff….

Next came Andy Whitelaw at number 3 against Colin Cruikshank and it was all looking like a bit of a no-contest at 9-0, 9-3 in two quick games to Andy. However, the words chickens, before, counting and hatched all came into play and for reasons unknown the "how to close out a squash match" button was disabled in Andy's head and the gallery was bemused to see a 0-9 in the third game. The fourth game was little better from Andy's point of view and it all came down to the last. This one was closely fought with much huffing and wheezing all round as the very effective new court heating at Waverley took it’s toll on both players. A number of desperate rallies from both players at the end of the set-two game could have seen it go either way but ultimately it was Colin who triumphed. 2-3.

Ian Forbes at No 5 was initially put under the cosh by John Allan to find himself two games down. Ian recognised that he'd not really been putting any pressure on John in those games and came out in the third with a much more attacking mindset and took it well. That continued in a closely fought fourth game which Ian took. By the time the fifth game rolled around Ian was well in control and closed out nicely. 3-2.

Mark Dutton then went on at No 4 against the very capable Peter Cochrane. The first two games were evenly fought but it was Peter who kept snaffling the bulk of the points on offer to take them both. The third game saw Mark muster everything he had in an attempt to save the match and he took the third going away. Any grand ideas that Mark might have had that the match was now his for the taking were soon swatted away by Peter who quickly raced to a 6-0 lead by dominating the tee. Mark was fast running out of juice, having used it all up in the third game and was simply unable to shift Peter from the tee and the front of the court. Some token swapping of serves for a while before Peter put Mark out of his misery and let him go for a nice little lie down. 1-3.

Poised at 2 rubbers each it fell to Alan Stokes at No 1 to decide the affair against Richard Nettleton. Alan's first two games were very comfortable and his new lightweight self was moving around the court very well to dominate all aspects of the games. The third was better defended by Richard but Alan still found himself at match point 8-4. At that point Alan hit a shot high up very near the side wall line that beat Richard and Richard just gave it away and approached for the match-end handshake. Alan kindly offered to replay the point as he thought it may well have been a high ball and for just a few minutes the observers in the gallery had an uncomfortable feeling that Alan might just come to regret his generosity as Richard took the hand out and then the next two points. Regrets avoided though and a 3-0 result to Alan.

All in all a very good result for Grange 4 with the key to the night being Ian Forbes' reversal of a potentially losing match at No 5.