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Club Champs Day Six - Finals

Finals day saw some serial winners retain their titles - Paul Millington in the men's, Hannah Cliff in the Women's, and John Thompson in the Vets.

Paul and Hannah both beat debut finalists in Peter Fargher and Sam Ward, no doub it's not the last we've seen of them on finals night. John overcame Colin McNestrie in five, but Colin's consolation is to take the Vintage title at the first attempt.

Biggest effort on finals day was by Jason Follin, who beat Paul Errington 3-2 at lunchtime, then Andy King 3-2 tonight, on his way to collecting the B, O35 and Racketball titles. Having siad that, several had to play two, three or four times today, so well done all of you !

Full results to follow ...

Sam collects a bagful while mum is left to scrabble for scraps

DC Solitions Squash Shop

Don't forget, for all your squash supplies call in at the club shop ...

Club Champs Day Five

As predicted Friday was the busiest day, with doubles, singles, vets vintage, tired bodies and empty glasses a plenty.

The evening kicked off with the women's semis, where Sam Ward beat mum Dawn in three, and Hannah Cliff beat Lucy Beecroft 3-1 in what was by all reports an excellent match. Three teenagers in the semis and two in the final sounds pretty good, doesn't it.

The doubles took its usual course with the mixed group - won by Cliff & Cliff - having fun while the macho men slugged it out in the other groups with hardly a smile between them. Millington and Iredale claimed a controversial victory in group C while the Sam & Lucy superteam dented a few male egos as the walked it in group B.

Yours truly acquited himself well against Mr Thompson considering I couldn't move more than a couple of feet an hour by the time we got on court, and as we speak the much-anticipated Cliff-McNestrie vets semi is still to go on court.

Update ... 10.15 and Colin takes the fifth13/11 to reach the vets final.

Finals start at around 4pm tomorrow ...

Club Champs Day Four

Millington moves into the final

Defending champion Paul Millington was first into the 'A' final, despatching Russell Hunter in straight games. The match started at Paul's favoured  ferocious pace, and Russell was minded to join in. There were some tremendous rallies in the first game, and the 9/2 scoreline scarcely did Russell justice for the effort he'd put in.

One observer (ok, it was me) forecast that the Alnwick man was unlikely to be able to keep that pace up, and so it proved as Paul raced to an 8-0 lead in the second with Russell now well under the cosh. Much to his own annoyance Paul tinned his first game ball opportunity, and Russell took advantage to claw a few points back. 9/4 this time, which on the balance of play was probably more than Russell merited.

He had some momentum now though, and managed to take an early lead in the third. At last managing to dominate some of the exchanges, and extracting a few errors from his opponent, Russell moved to a 7/2 advantage. That was as good as it got though, Paul tightened up, took control of the 'T', and took seven points in a row to clinch the match, 9/7.

"Too fast for me," said Russell afterwards. "I thought I played well in the first and got nowhere, but I got slaughtered in the second. I think he eased off in the third, but when I got to seven I thought I'd take that game. I wouldn't have won the match, but it would have been nice to take a game."

In truth Russell was beaten at his own favourite game - fast, hard, low, giving your opponent no time to think. "That's what I'm going to do to one these on Saturday," threatened the pummelled loser as he watched Ferret Fargher take on Joker Ward for the other place in the final.

Glenn took the first game in that match (which I didn't see as both semis were on at the same time), but thereafter Peter imposed his game to come out the 3/1 winner and set up a final which should be a real clash of styles - it could be a cracker.

John's out of gas

Incident of the night was John Thompson's late arrival. John works at Nissan and took delivery of a new Quaskhai (you know what I mean) today, and naturally assumed there was enough petrol in it to get him from Nissan to Asda in Boldon. Nope ... he didn't even make the A19, sputtering to a halt on the sliproad. A quick call to security brought him a canful, but of course his battery was flat too. To cut a long story short, he got here and won both his matches.

Friday frolics

With the ladies' first team having an away match tonight, their semis are tomorrow, which should be the busiest day of the lot with the doubles event alongside all the tidying-up main draw matches. Action starts at 6pm and it promises to be a late night ...

Steve Cubbins

Club Champs Day Three

We're down to the semi-finals in the main events, with the top seeds all through.

In the women's event defending champion Hannah Cliff eased past Carly Huntley to set up a semi-final meeting with Lucy Beecroft, while the other semi will be an all-Ward affair. Sam beat Gilly Milly in straight games but mum Dawn was stretched to the limit, having to come from 2-1 down and 4-1 down in the fifth to deny Nicky Dobson. "I didn't think I  was going to win that," admitted a relieved Dawn.

The bottom men's semi was already settled - Glenn Ward v Ferret Fargher, and tonight the last remaining quarter-final saw Russell Hunter and John Thompson slug it out for the right to meet Paul Millington in the top half  semi.  As expected it was Russell doing most of the slugging, coming through 3-0.

Elsewhere the Masters continued apace ... well, probably slower than that term suggests, but at least the matches were completed with no emergency calls required. Yours truly took his life in his hands by despatching El Prez in five fast, furious, skilful, imaginative, action-packed games, and my next task, in all probability, is to see if I can extract a bead of sweat from Mr Thompson in the vets semis.

Meanwhile over on court one, the "pong, pong" sounds told us that the racketball event was under way. Everyone tells us we should be playing more of this, and maybe it will be good for beginners and those struggling with their movement in their dotage, but so far it's yet to take off in t'North ... time will tell.

Steve Cubbins

Mister Maximum
Dave Todd in the O45, O55, O65 and Racketball events

Full posts now available

The first mailing went out last night, with reports from the first two days of the Club Championships. Unfortunately the settings were for "Short" meaning that only the first few words of each report went out in the mailing.

The setting is now changed to "full", so the complete reports should go out as from tonight, and as you can imagine this post is mainly to test whether this happens correctly!

In the meantime, if you're reading this on the site, don't forget to subscribe by entering your email address on the right, and you'll receive all the updates by email (at most only one email a doy, and only on days where there are new posts).

Cheers,
Steve

Club Champs Day Two

A fairly quiet night, as the first rounds of the main events concluded, some racketball matches and the quarters of the 'A' event.

Glenn Ward progressed smoothly enough to the semis with a straight-games win over Steve Robertson, and he will meet Peter 'ferret' Farhger. Maurice Cliff got his practice against a runner last night, but in truth Peter is a runner extraordinaire, and although our Moz had leads in two of the games, and accumulated seven points in all three of them, the crowd and both players knew there was only one winner ...

Defending champion Paul Millington meets the winner of tomorrow's match between Russell Hunter and John Thompson in the other semi.

The glory may be in the 'A' event, but all eyes are looking to Friday's doubles, where 13 pairs will go all out for the ultimate prize. Group A features five mixed pairs intent on having fun, while Groups B & C are composed of the macho men, all likely to be eclipsed by the Sam & Lucy all-star team.

Wednesday's action starts at 6pm, and if we can get enough people hanging around in their sweaty kit we'll have a lightning tournament or three ....

Steve Cubbins 

Club Champs 09 under way

The 2009 edition of the Club Championships got under way last night (Monday), and despite the usual worries about 'should we ring everyone up to make sure they know they're playing' there were only a couple of no shows, and those have been rearranged.

With the main events using 'normal' scoring the 30-minute court allocation was a tad on the short side (I'm talking about you, Maurice), but to be fair I always prefer to have people waiting for courts rather than have them standing empty.

Match of the night was Steve Robertson's narrow 3-2 escape against Hannah Cliff, closely followed by the enthralling Colin McNestrie/Jason Follin duel which concluded the evening on court four (3-2 to Colin). I must have inadverdently locked the passageway door as I went to mark it, because the expected crowds simply failed to appear - you don't know what you missed, people.

Action continues tonight, starting at 6pm ... and remember, the finals are on Saturday night ('cos I'm departing for warmer climes on Sunday!).

Steve Cubbins

Latest Leagues - November 2009

Here's the latest leagues, closing date 13th December 2009

Latest Leagues (Pdf)

Club Championships 2009 - the Draws

Club Championships 2009 - DRAWS