The glass-backed courts were in good condition, the only issues being lighting. One court had a pair of fluorescent tubes not working, and the other court had a mysterious "lights off" incident in the middle of a rally. With the outside temperature at around -2ºC the court temperature was not surprisingly fairly cold at 15ºC, which was going to cause some sluggish starts.
Ian's (#3) match against Dave began at a fair pace with many great lengths and drops from both players. Dave was ahead for most of the first game and got to game ball. But Ian fought hard to get the score back to an 8-8 tie-break, only to serve the ball out and lose the game! The rest of the match was great to watch with Ian winning many rallies from great slice drop shots and tight sharp angle boasts. It was a very clean match with very few let calls needed. But there were several occasions where Ian was in position for a definite stroke but opted to play the ball and continue the rally. On a couple of occasions, the referee had already marked the stroke on the score sheet because it was expected a let would be called! So it's great to see Ian playing the ball where at all possible and keeping the squash flowing. After many great rallies, Ian came off court with 1 game to Dave's 3.
Before Rob (#1) could play, an announcement came over the PA system that the club would be closing at 9pm due to the weather, so it was decided to return the Grange Club to play out the match there. But even the home court advantage didn't seem to assist Rob. Ken's playing was solid and consistent, and this forced many errors from Rob, who played an uncharacteristally large number of shots into the top, middle and even bottom of the tin. Rob was moving well and his retrieval skills were on form making for some impressive and great to watch rallies, but Ken had the initiative throughout the match, and the scoreboard rewarded Ken's vintage performance with a comfortable 3-0 win.
Unfortunately, I did not observe enough of Mike (#2) and Ali's match to comment, but can report a comfortable 3-0 win to Ali. Food and beer was had back in the comfort of the Grange club bar. Man of the Match would have to be awarded to Patrick for braving the elements to walk down to the local pizza shop to pick up the pizzas! (Report: Steve Eyles)
| Teams: | Grange 2 vs David Lloyd Newhaven |
| Pos | Player | Rubbers | Games | Points | | | Player | Rubbers | Games | Points | |
| 1 | Robert Pfab | 0 | 0 | 9 | Ken Maxwell | 1 | 3 | 27 | |||
| 2 | Mike Hall | 0 | 0 | 14 | Ali Fleming | 1 | 3 | 27 | |||
| 3 | Ian Forbes | 0 | 1 | 27 | Dave Jubb | 1 | 3 | 32 | |||
| 4 | Patrick Langley | 1 | 3 | 34 | Charles Robertson | 0 | 1 | 30 | |||
| 5 | Steve Eyles | 0 | 1 | 25 | Taryne Lowe | 1 | 3 | 36 | |||
| Total | 1 | 5 | 109 | 4 | 13 | 152 | |||||
| Competition Points | 5 | 16 | |||||||||
4 comments:
Erm, why was the food served up at the Grange?
Surely the best bit about being in an East of Scotland squash league is getting to travel to new and previously unchartered territories to see what food is on offer.
The company that runs DLN decided last minute to shut the place at 9pm "due to adverse weather conditions"
So that summarily cancelled the court booking for the #1 strings to play, and it also nullified the booking for the bar/restaurant to provide food/drink and a place to sit down. I'm sure if they had been playing Dunbar or such like, DLN would have forfeited 20 points.
Should it not have been DLN who had to concede the match which hadn't been played, as they were the home team?
Technically yes... but the sporting thing was to get it played if a court could possibly be found at this late hour. Luckily a court was to be had in this case - if the venue was, say, East or West Lothian or Fife, that might not have been an option.
The more serious implication would have been the withdrawal of food service and, say, being forced to go down to a pub for a packet of crisps, in somewhere like, say, Myreside ;-)
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