Melbourn won 15-7

After four straight defeats the 2nds really needed a win to go into the Christmas break on a positive note – the early season optimism that saw us top after three, four, five weeks had long since gone up in smoke after a string of losses.

First up to try and reverse the trend were the Family Bradshaw – teenager Will on Court 2 against Will Stuart Jones, whilst Mum Kate took on George Montgomery on Court 1.

Going with Will vs Will first, the game quickly became something of a hitting contest as each Will tried to show the great will to win by attempting to out-muscle each other. To be fair to Stamford’s Will this was playing to his strengths… and our own Will is now hitting the ball much heavier – he has always had a really clean ball strike and now adult muscle is building up its leading to some seriously powerful strokes. That said, it wasn’t necessarily the right game plan in this one as the low, fast and furious suited WSJ better than WB, who has subtlety, variation and disguise in his locker that we just didn’t have much chance to see in the frenetic rallies. This lead to two intense and fund games going Stamford’s way, which looked like being three as WSJ built a 14-12 lead. However here we got something new from our Will – Iron Will. Pure determination saw him chase down every single ball to save both match balls, winning the first with a ridiculous full extension cross court drop shot flick and the second with a similarly sinew stretching effort. A bit of a lucky mishit drop nicely to earn WB a game ball, which prompted another rally of flying around the court chasing everything… and another superb no-look cross drop flick to claim an unlikely game.
Will’s reaction afterwards was “I’ve got this – I know how to beat him”. Unfortunately WSJ was also regrouping and in game four he didn’t let WB off-the-hook. However, despite the overall 12-15, 11-15, 16-14, 10-15 loss it was a really good performance from Will up against, as he discovered post-match, an 1800 player on SquashLevels. His own ‘level’ of ~400 is clearly massively out-of-date: he is more like a 1500 player these days an on a rapid upwards curve… if he keeps finding himself some time on the (Squash) court in a busy old life.
And what of Mum? Well, game one saw Kate in a bit of the Men’s team match Kate mode of forcing to make things happen a bit too hard and making mistakes. Dropping from behind with your opponent set might work against some of the rest of the Melbourn 2nds players in practice drills, but on a match night, with players on their toes, it’s less effective. George won the opener. However there were flashes from Kate when she got George deep first, stepped up the court and then took the drop shots on early, taking George’s time away. Game two saw rather more of this, and very few errors. Kate with very few errors is pretty deadly. It was 1-1.
George came back though in game three, building himself a lead that he kept edging out to be 10-6 up. A significant advantage in PAR-15, but not a decisive one. What it prompted from Kate was superb – focused, determined, no errors Squash, playing with more depth and patience and grinding her way back into contention. She got it all square at 13-all and then 14-all, and then found the two winners she needed to claim the tie-break to go 2-1 up.
The effect of the third game on George was clear in the gap to game four, which he mostly spent sitting slumped against the sidewall with a 100-yard stare. How had game three got away? He appeared mentally shot, something Kate was not helping with as she went pinpoint accurate from the get-go of game four. She built an unassailable lead, which survived a bit wobble on the cusp of victory looking for the rapid exit to wrap up a superb 12-15, 15-12, 16-14, 15-10 win.

Kate’s win was the bit one as the next two matches on court, Gareth Jones (3) vs Rich Barker and Matt Walker (4) against Ian Ball, were ones that the Melbourn players looked significantly the stronger in from the very first rallies.
Gareth raced away with game one of his match, rushing Rich for time as he rattled into a 7-1 lead and then cruised through the rest. A similarly good start had Gareth well up in the second, holding 4-1, 9-5 and 13-8 advantages. It was almost too easy… which can be a downfall where Gareth is concerned. A silly error on the 13-8 point where an inexplicable shot attempt ended up at the bottom of tin (Gareth said afterwards it was an attempted trickle-boast… could have fooled me) seemed to send him for a loop. One point against rapidly became six in a row as Gareth bizarrely found himself game-ball down at 14-13. However, here it was Rich’s turn to make a completely unforced error, which absolutely let Gareth off the hook. Two solid rallies later, no extravagances any more, and it was two games to love, and one strong run of “keep it simple” form later in the third and Gareth had wrapped up a 15-6, 16-14, 15-7 victory.
Menwhile, next door, so very, very similar. It took Matt his usual few rallies to get his game going (cut-out touch is not a tap you can just turn on and off) but from 5-3 down a run of two points gained for every one dropped built a 14-10 lead. It took Matt a couple of goes to get over the line, but once there he was sitting pretty. Especially when he did much the same in the second, pushing Ian deep and cutting lofted defences off at the knees for those deadly front-corner kills. Once again a late game wobble with the line in sight made the score closer than the game itself had been (14-10 got back to 14-13 this time before the coupe de grace), but having established a two game lead Matt was not letting off. Game three finally saw him play all three segments, start, middle and end, well. And that wrapped up a 15-12, 15-13, 15-3 win.

Gareth and Matt would expect to beat the opponents they faced. Kate was far from certain of beating George (indeed their Squashlevels pre-match were nearly identical, with George fractionally higher). How important was Kate’s win? Very, given Jan Brynjolffssen (2) found himself completely discombobulated by Dave Spooner. Jan was just not able to get Dave under enough pressure at the start of rallies, which allowed the Stamford player to do his wait-and-play-it-the-other-way trick. Kryptonite for Jan’s movement, which relies on anticipation to mask being slightly stiff and slow over the deck. But here, instead of being on the ball he was repeatedly charging like a fire engine racing to the wrong fire [old skool Football quote, bonus points for anyone who knows what the originally referred too]. Twisting and turning to adjust, Jan could often get his racket head to it but did so with no weight behind the shot. Cue weak and skewed efforts that Dave could put away. Sheer intensity saw Jan battle his way to 14-all in the second, but when two mistakes in a row threw that situation away the way back was too much to contemplate and Jan lost 9-15, 14-16, 11-15.

However, those earlier wins for Kate, Gareth and Matt, plus a game bagged by Will added up to a 15-7 win overall that ended the 2nds losing run and saw us move a bit further above Division 3’s bottom four sides. We will spend Christmas fifth in the table, which is exactly where you would expect a team with 4 wins and 4 defeats to be in a 9-team league!