Allenburys 2 vs Chantry 1, Tuesday 11th October 2016

As the home team were slower to reach Ware than the Chantry team, the first two games on court were String 1 (Carl vs Gavin) and String 4 (Vinh vs Dave).

Carl came into this game on the back of a disappointing performance last week when, allegedly, he managed to play with his shoes on the wrong feet.  Luckily someone helped him get dressed this week and there were no hiccups as Carl quickly ran out a 3-0 winner – with his drop shots apparently being in particularly fine form.

On court 2, Vinh and his dodgy arm were playing Dave. Beforehand Vinnie had been giving key advice on how to avoid damaging his arm again: win 3-0 in 25 minutes.  Vinnie duly delivered being far to classy for his opponent, who afterwards complained that the match-up wasn’t fair since Vinnie was “playing proper squash”.

So 2-0 up and looking good for Chantry!

Next up was James playing Rob.  James didn’t seem full of confidence – lamenting that he’d lost 3-0 to Rob in the summer, not even getting into double figures in any of the games.  But at least he was determined to improve on that this time and, perhaps to his own surprise, ran out 15-11 winner in the first game.  Unfortunately then the cider and burgers started to affect his game and it was all downhill from there as James succumbed 3-1.

On the other court, Paul took on Patrick.  The first game was a fairly comfortable win for Paul, with Carl even praising his uncharacteristic playing up and down the line on his backhand.  The second game started in similar fashion with Paul pulling out a good lead but then Patrick started to pull a few points back, eventually taking the game to two-clear.  Both Patrick and Paul had game points but in the end Patrick edged it 18-16.  That proved to be the turning point as too much travel and too little squash took it’s toll on Paul, with Patrick running out a 3-1 winner.

So, it’s back 2-2 and all to play for in the final game – Mark vs Richard Batchelor.  Richard normally plays above Gavin but has been struggling with a bad back, or so we’re told.

There’s no sign of any problems with Richard’s game, or his back, in the first set as he is moving around the court nicely and hitting the ball as cleanly as ever and with a lot of power.  Mark is running around the court like a valiant, but headless, chicken and loses that set 15-6.  The second set starts in the same vein and Richard pulls out a big lead but then Mark starts to get into it and finds that Richard isn’t running forward for dropshots so much and pulls back that lead – but ultimately Richard takes it 17-15.

A long way back for Mark now, but he’s got a sniff and a close 3rd game gets underway which Mark takes 15-10.  Now the pendulum has swung the other way and Richard is clearly struggling and Mark quickly finishes off the match 15-4, 15-5.

So, a 3-2 victory means that Chantry remain unbeaten after 2 matches – almost unheard of levels of success!

Now victorious we head for the bar and the only reason Chantry put out such a strong team – the famous Allenburys Duck Pizza.  But, disaster, they’ve changed Pizza Shop, no more Duck Pizza! Some lame excuse about dodgy crusts.  Never mind, instead we’re entertained by James and his explanation of lumens and light levels on courts – whilst trying to sell his LED lights to Allenburys!

There’s now a 2 week break, next match is at home on Tuesday 1st November vs Active4Less1.  Then we’ll see if Chantry can maintain their purple patch!