Week 1 of the Herts summer league season saw Melbourn back in Division 2… because there is no Division 1 this year, unfortunately. That meant this match, which nominally pitted the 2024 champions (Radlett) against the runners-up (our 1sts) took place in the second tier. Which is also the highest tier available. Confusing.

First up was Kate Bradshaw, fresh from her England heroics. She was playing third string, where she was up against Alan Mackinnon. Alan took the opening game, but then Kate found her range as her sky high confidence kicked in. This lead to two very comprehensive game wins, followed by hanging tough in a breaker third to complete a 3-1 win (12-15, 15-5, 15-8, 17-15) against an opponent who turned out to have held a slightly higher Squashlevels number than Kate coming into the evening – the target of getting her number back over 3000 and holding it there is very much on again: 2892 currently, which is already enough to have Kate back into the top 100 in England at the time of writing.

Next on was Mike Herd (2) against Nick Williams. This time it was the home player, i.e. Mike, who got off to the flying start, rattling up the first two games 15-8, 15-9. Some might observe that is 30 points won, which ought to be nearly enough to claim a Squash match… (first to 33!)… but Herts Div.2 is playing PAR-15. So Mike threw in a brief pause for breath in the third, which skipped gaily by 8-15, before regathering himself to win the fourth 15-4 to complete his 3-1 win.

The two lower string victories meant Matt Sampson (1) went on to court against Tim Kipling with Melbourn already having the bonus points tucked into their back pocket. Not that it would have matter was Matt put on a masterclass to beat a handy player in Tim extremely comprehensively, not even the extra drag of having to continue accumulating until he got to 15 slowing him down as he won 15-4, 15-5, 15-3! That wrapped up a 12-2 win for the 1sts, which was an excellent start for the summer for Mike and co.