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| Report: | Wasn't it wonderful to have the first division matches back playing for another season?!
Bowdon were running their Club Night before the first team players took the stage, so the club was already bustling with people, giving a great atmosphere from the second players arrived. I've always felt it's a great idea to run Club Nights on a Tuesday to encourage people to support and feel connected to their first division team. It's one of the first things I changed when I was the coach at The Northern many years ago.
So the crowd was great from the off. The first matches on court were Matt Lowery vs Sam Wileman no.5 string, and starting off the show-court matches was home coach / 'The Lancashire Legend' / 'The Ambassador of Skill', Pete Billson vs Warrington captain, Whippy.
Matt is super steady and forced way. way..... way too many errors from Sam's racket. Sam's trademark delicate boast just wasn't working, and clipped the tin 75% of the time! However, Matt makes himself incredibly tough to beat, never giving away cheap points, so total credit to Matt for his 3-1 win.
Pete and Whippy go back over 30 years, from playing each other at U12's, growing up training together most days, playing for the same teams and travelling together for two decades! Not many people control a squash ball as well as Pete can, but over the last couple of seasons his movement is being held back slightly by a dodgy knee. After the first game (a scrappy affair which Pete probably should have won), Whippy settled in to find his accuracy and managed to control the next two games. So, after the first two matches, the overall score stood at 1-tie-all.
Emily vs Ameel was next on the side court. The first two games saw Ameel take a 6-1 lead only for dogged Emily to peg him back. Even when Emily was losing rallies she was generally making Ameel (her ex-Warrington team-mate) do a lot of work. This paid off toward the end of each game as Ameel would tire and Em would find some lovely winners after moving the ball around all four corners. Emily totally ran away with the third game for a decent first performance of the season.
Second on the show court was 17-year-old Chales Keeble, who is newly promoted up the order after a summer of training and vast improvement. However, it's tough when he has to face someone as formidable as Ben Smith at No.2. Ben would win most weeks at no.1, let alone 2. Charlie did alright but it was always going to be very tough. Ben won 3-0.
Last on were occasional training partners, Joel Makin and Stu MacGregor. Stu has shown excellent improvement in his PSA results over the last 6 months to a year. Joel is coming back from a bit of an injury and illness. This was a good game. Competitive all the way. Stu never gave up and after Joel dominating the first two, Stu came roaring back to deservedly take the third game. In classic Makin style, he came out in the next game and made life so tough for Stu, already building on the massive amounts of work Stu had already put into the match - Joel basically beat him into submission.
It was certainly a good night of squash, made better with a full gallery of supporters. I'm sure everyone there, from players to spectators, was happy to be back playing another season of North West Division One squash. Thanks to Bowdon for hosting a enjoyable night.
Warrington have their week off next week (as there's an odd number of teams in the division), then are back with a home match vs Grove Park, with 'Big Ben - The Grimsby Grenade' once again available to play. |
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