After a little hiatus of a couple of weeks due to a bye week and a touch of snow that stopped some our esteemed opponents getting to us, the Westies squash team resumed its course back to the hallowed land of Division 2 of the Warwickshire Squash League. 

In one of those nice little local derbies that league squash throws up, we travelled the vast distance to Hampton. No need for Sexy Susan the Satnav, no silly 6.45pm meet times, just a pleasant drive through the countryside whilst being harassed by some nutter in a silver VW Golf. And I thought that Audis were the new BMWs. How wrong was I?  

Anyway, we turned up to Hampton to find the place was rammed to the gunnels with cars. It appears Hampton have followed the Westies lead and decided to upgrade some of their facilities and the place was a building site. It didn’t help that their Astroturf pitch was being used by a bunch of footballers and they always turn up one to a car. Anyway, after 5 minutes of trying to park in a space about ½ the size of his motor, Harps was at his wits end and we were about to miss the start of the match. 2 footballers were stood next to us watching blank eyed the entire time as I’m not sure there was enough intellect between them to consider conversation. Just as Dave was about to give up one turned round and said: 

“You can park here mate, we’re just leaving”.  

Dave managed to keep his cool until he closed the window.  

“Thick *******s, they’ve been stood there watching for the last 5 minutes telling us that we weren’t going to get into that space and they weren’t even ********* talking to each other. Stupid ****s! *******s! They shouldn’t be allowed out at night, they’re a ******** menace to society, selfish ***********s.” 

We sat and waited as one exited in his N reg BMW and the other drove off in his silver VW. I rest my case. 

And on to the match.  

I don’t know what’s been happening at Hampton, but they were perfectly pleasant to us when we turned up. Very surreal. The umpiring was positively fair too. Interesting occasionally, but interesting to both sides.  

Rich went on at 5 against John Green. Now Lucas doesn’t do things the easy way. Knowing that abstention is the best way to prepare for an important match, he had decided to consume vast quantities of Westies Finest Best over the weekend, washed down with a couple of glasses of Sauvignon Blanc and a bottle of Tesco’s Own Brand Methode Champagnoise. Looking rougher than a badger’s behind with butt rash, he crawled on court and obviously not being himself won convincingly 3 -0. 

Doylie had a run with Graham Hollway. Now Graham’s an awkward bugger on the squash court. Luckily he takes a game to get going and after Aida had won the 1^st easily, he made a game of it, but the Westies man still managed to come out on top 10 – 8 and 9 -7 to win 3-0. 

I then proceeded to beat Tony Cramp 3 – 0 and once again the match was won before no’s 2 and 1 had got into their matches. Lucky that really as Harps has been carrying an injury recently and that’s not the best way to play against Dave Lea. Unfortunately for Harps, Dave Lea’s new arrival has not been giving him any trouble and he looked remarkably fresh. With Harps appearing to be rather ginger still, he walked away with the game 3 -0. 

And now to Fokesie. Ah Fokesie. Now Si is probably expecting a slating here. And he deserves it. After winning the 1^st all looked rather rosy. Unfortunately, the courts were rather slow and cold for some reason and that made timing the ball rather difficult. Even more so if you’ve been playing a lot of racquetball. So Simon decided that the best way of playing the next few games was to hit the side wall first as often as he could, shout a bit, mentally disintegrate and be grumpy. Which is rather annoying really, because he should be good enough to beat Nigel Clement unless he is having a really bad day. Which is obviously what happened here.  

Ah well. The points are ours and the double done over Hampton. Pleasure. As Rich would say, doubles all round. 

And once again I haven’t even mentioned Gordon Brown, again. I’ve been advised to try someone else as The Manse Menace is apparently too easy a target. Barack Obama maybe? It’s interesting to see that for all the liberals and atheists the 2^nd Coming is now upon us – shame that he appears to be continuing along the same lines as his predecessor, offing 17,000 troops to Afghanistan, but hey, he’s the closest thing to God they’ve got right now. And what’s more at least Georgie W Porgie liked us. O’bama certainly doesn’t, still blames us for the potato famine. Oh dear. Well done Gordon, I can blame you for that too.    

I can’t believe Mike Harradence would insult the readership of this column by suggesting that it would take 30 minutes to read my last report. Admittedly, the last couple have been rather verbose and contained a few long words, but surely they wouldn’t take half an hour to read?

Now, I’ve just done a quick test and in 60 seconds I could read (this is using my index finger on the screen and mouthing the words too) 206 words. Now including 3 minutes to make the tea and, let’s say, 2 minutes each to look up difficult words such as “ravenous” or “tumultuous” or even “tendrils” on the internet dictionary, this only takes….(hold on while I remove my fingers from the keyboard to add up) 6 add 3 add (sorry, socks off too) 2 add 2 add 2 = 15. So there you have it a MAXIMUM of 15 minutes. Shocking exaggeration Mike, have you ever considered a career in politics? You’d be brilliant.  

Anyway on to LA Fitness III. First up was Jane Owen on her debut for the Men’s team. I’ll be nice about Jane, otherwise I’m sure my car reg no. will be noted for “special attention” from the Solihull Constabulary. Jane proceeded to win the 1^st game against John O’Neill in a hard fought encounter, 9-7. Unfortunately John then proceeded to throw his rather more substantial bulk around the court. Had he been playing Lucas it would have been like watching squash by 2 blokes in comedy sumo wrestling suits, but Jane is a touch more slight.

Normally, she would have countered this sort of behaviour by chucking John over her shoulder, kneeling on his neck and using her racquet as a night stick. Of course we’d have all sworn blind that he had fallen down the stairs in the match report, however as it was her first game for us, Jane was a bit unsure as to what she could and couldn’t get away with. Luckily, John got close enough that she was able to get some DNA on the edge of her racquet, so some of the unsolved crimes that are sitting on the Warwickshire Police’s books will soon be cracked and Mr O’Neill will be able to enjoy a few years rest at one of Her Majesty’s less salubrious residences. That’ll teach him to beat her 3 -1.

Unfortunately, Harps and I were late due to some domestic sh1t at Casa de Bish and although we were only 10 minutes behind the others, we missed the whole of Doylie’s match against Keith Pheasey, so I can’t really tell you how he played. Aida said I’m supposed to let you know that he was glorious, just glorious.

I had a short, sharp and sweet match against Jonathon Smith. Racing through the 1^st I lifted my foot off the accelerator too much again and although I won the next two comfortably, they were closer than they should have been. Bit worrying really. Need to get the killer instinct back. I’ll have to stop cooking the red meat and eat less of those fancy “vegetables”.

Dave looked as though he was in for a toughie against Andy Pell, but after he took the 1^st 9-6, his opponent decided that running around after Harps was a bit too much like hard work and capitulated with nary a point further gained.

Finally, Fokesie went on last against Simon Duns and decided the best way of getting a sweat on was to let his opponent have a 6-0 lead in the 1^st 2 games and then come back to win 9-6 and 10-9. In the last Simon was less charitable and started at 0-0, winning it in the end 9-3. Simon needs to go on the raw meat diet with me.

After the match, Jane was unable to join us for food as she had to be up early the next day to learn how to rally drive in a riot van. Part of the course I’ve heard, involves being taught the art of herding animal rights protesters and how to run over hippies whilst not leaving tyre marks, so it can be classed as an “accident”. Most of us would PAY to do a course like that.

Anyway, job done, a further 18 points in the bag and with any chance Sutton and Hampton will have taken lots of points off each other in their game on Monday. One can but hope!

Anyway, Ardencote at home on Monday 2^nd Feb. All Support welcome!  

Harps can feel the clammy hand of destiny all over him. The 3 sisters sit at the bottom of the Tree of Fate endlessly twisting the tendrils of our fortune, ceaselessly watching the Westies as the march back to League 2 continues. Will they continue to weave a path of good luck for us until the end of the season? Or will they out their knives and cut away causing a disaster near the scale of the extinction of the dinosaurs. Only time will tell.

Obviously the clammy hand of destiny is quite cold and wet as the last time I spoke to Dave he was full of man flu. So maybe it wasn’t the clammy hand of destiny at all, maybe it was just that he woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat due to his runny nose. We’ll find out at the end of the season.

The match against Coleshill didn’t really start on Monday at 7.30 chez fortress toasty, it began the Friday before with the little matter of Lucas and Bentos fighting it out for the no.5 spot, as Fokesie had returned from his endless honeymoon. The fact that it was cold, wet and miserable as he walked off the plane will teach him to have 4 weeks sunning himself in Australia.

Bentos raced into a 2-0 lead, which as you will all know is the killer against Lucas. Rich has as much chance of coming back from 2-0 down as, well, Burnley have of coming from 3 goals behind against spawny, spawny, Spurs. So you can imagine how gutted Frey was when not only did Lucas summon the reserves of energy he usually only finds against small children and ladies to draw level, but he even went 1 better than Burnley in actually winning the match. Tremendous.

Now I find it very difficult to write complimentary prose about Lucas. Anyone who knows the man or has played against him knows of his innate ability to wind someone up, of his almost telepathic instinct of finding the right buttons to push to cause the maximum offence with the minimum of words. Highly entertaining if a) you aren’t the target or b) have the ability and wit to answer back. So, as I’m uncomfortable with being nice to Rich, I will use the maximum amount of brevity that I can.

He beat Steve Williams, 3-0. And his opponent wasn’t even collecting his pension.

On the opposite court, Doylie was having a runaround against Rob Hadley. Going 2 – 0 up in a matter of minutes Ada was enjoying his match, until his opponent started to use all the dark arts of mind games, interrupting Doylie’s serene progress to a deserved victory. Unfortunately, this rather frustrated the Westies’ player who started to get a little stressed which is unusual for Doylie. It wasn’t until the 5^th game that Ade stopped ranting and dusted himself off to win 9-3 in the decider.

I had a relatively straight forward 3–0 win against Peter Whiteman and the match was won. From there on in it was just a question of how far we could extend our lead over Coleshill in the league. However, this didn’t seem to stop the match from getting, how shall I put it politely, just a little “tasty”.

Harps went on at 2 against Jaques du Preez who had beaten Dave 3-2 at their place. Unfortunately, despite Dave’s best road runner efforts, he was unable to improve on that scoreline and went down 3-1.

And now we come to the most entertaining match of the lot. Fokesie was playing a young man by the name of Eliott Ward. His demeanour reminded me of, well to be frank, me, at his age. Some decent squash, lots of running, some of the headless variety, but even more questioning of the referee, teddies flying if one didn’t get ones own way and some of the best fireworks since Big Ben’s first chime on the 1^st January 2000.

Eliott raced into a 2-0 lead as Simon struggled to get to grips with the increase in pace of squash having played just once since coming home. He also had to deal with listening to the sound of a very intense Bentos who’d come to watch. So did I, but at least Simon had a glass wall between him and Frey. I didn’t! This unfortunately put Simon off his stroke, as it were and it was only after he had done his best school teacher’s telling off impression that silence returned to the little library in between the squash courts.

He won the next game and Eliott started to lose the plot. Getting very irate with everyone including the marker Lucas, who, as you can imagine, has the man management skills of a ravenous female grizzly bear with a hangover and PMT. Not the best way of endearing yourself to the person making all the important decisions. Especially if, as in the majority of cases, you are wrong (I should know, I’ve been like it a few times).

Anyway, Simon continued his revival which continued all the way to the tumultuous end of the 5^th, with the scores level at 8-8 and Eliott once again complaining bitterly about some perceived injustice. Elliot called one and Simon sportingly told him he would serve the ball into the middle of the court so he could try and hit it into the nick. By now all semblance of rational thought had passed from Eliott’s fevered brain and when Simon duly put the ball up Eliott missed the nick by approximately 8 feet and even less fortunately the ball ended up right back where it started and Simon had to call. Lucas was given no real option but to give a stroke and the match was over.

Cue the fireworks. I could go into detail, but I’ll let your imagination run wild as to what you think they were like. It would take too long to explain and my description just wouldn’t do them justice. But it was highly entertaining.

As a postscript to this match, I would like to tell you that Bentos played Lucas again last week. Racing into a 2-0 lead Bentos looked good to regain his place in the team. Unfortunately he had another shocker, except this one was worse. Losing the next 2 games 10-9 (which means he had at least 2 match points), he inevitably lost the plot, his marbles and the match, going down 9-1 in the 5^th. 

On Monday we are away at LA Fitness, whilst our next home match is against Ardencote on the 2^{nd Feb}.

The Ladies team is also playing Warwick University Ladies on Tuesday 27^th Jan at the Westies. Kick off 7.15-7.30ish.

Support for all matches welcome!! 

Sorry, but I had to get that one in. 

In the general spirit of the current credit crisis and allegedly disastrous sales figures with in all industries, apart from insolvency practitioners funnily enough, I have decided to offer you a 2 for 1 report. 2 reports for the reading time of 1! Or in other words, I was just too lazy over the Christmas break to write the report from the previous match. 

We had the pleasure, on the 15th December, to play a match at the Old Sils. Now, it’s been a long time since I played there and my only real memory of the place, was wiping my hand on a wall to dry it, only to find it was wetter afterwards due to the condensation. If I remember rightly, I tried a lob serve that was given out as it hit one of the icicles hanging from the ceiling of the court, which, according to their marker, was an integral part of the squash court as it was there when we had started the match. Hmmm. 

I don’t know if the Sil’s have had an injection of cash, or it’s the fact that they’ve realised that as they get older they need more warmth on the courts to keep the joints from seizing up, but it was positively toasty when we arrived. 

Now I’m not sure how many of you have played squash at the Sils, but unlike the Westies, the Sil’s courts are like a fine spinner. Let’s say Daniel Vettori. The West Warwicks’ are more Monty Panesar – the ball comes on to you at a lovely consistent pace, with little turn from the cracks and its easy to smash it wherever you want to. Daniel Vettori on the other hand, varies his pace beautifully so that you are unsure at what pace the ball is coming to you and he turns the occasional one past the bat so you can’t be too sure of your angles either. It was as though the front walls had some string attached to the ball. All you cricketers will know what I mean, you’re just about to play your shot and the ball appears to have been pulled back and you spoon it up in the air as you’ve played too early – or in a squash player’s case you volley too early, your racquet is on the down swing when you finally hit the ball and you hammer it into the tin. Rather frustrating. 

However, enough of that let’s get onto the match. In true “you couldn’t make it up” style, Rich Lucas had managed to get injured playing football against his 7 year old son. Apparently not remembering the old maxim that if you go into a tackle hard you’re less likely to get injured yourself, he wimped out of a challenge with his son and got clattered, injuring one of his eyelashes. Obviously not wanting to appear in public in such a state Rich rang Harps and cried off on the morning of the game. A very unhappy vice chairman then spent the rest of  the day trying to fill the rather large void left by the one affectionately known to the Westies (by his nickname which is meant with no offence, but with the sincerest affection, as Princes Harry and Charles would say), as “Fatboy”. 

Eventually, Dave managed to get hold of a young man who, although he would have needed 3 of him to replace Richard’s gap, agreed to turn up and make his debut for the 1^st team. Keith Staples walked onto court at the Sils obviously awed by his teammates and the surroundings that he played. Sports stars sometimes say that they feel physically sick or even throw up before making their debut for massive or international teams – Keith obviously knew how it felt here. Unfortunately the Staples Stare was no match for Phil Davies and after a valiant effort which proved that he probably could play for the teams and win, he went down 3-0. 

Doylie and I both had hiccups on our way to 3-1 wins, and Bentos eventually won out in what ended up being the deciding match 3-2. On reflection, Frey probably should have won more easily, but he too was having issues with the bowling on the courts and couldn’t time a 60 second minute properly. But in the end, sheer bloody mindedness won him the day and the match for the Westies. 

Which was lucky really, because Harps had had such a day chasing around after players, that his mind was somewhere else. On the planet Zarb I think. Personally I blame, with all affection and friendliness intended as I say it, Fatboy. 

Anyway, HAPPY NEW YEAR to one and all!!!!!! 

Last Monday we travelled to Priory to have a hack against their 3^rd team. I almost forgot that Dave put Sexy Susan the Satnav on and she was in her best government revenue raising form as we took an hour to get to Edgbaston via parts of Birmingham that haven’t been visited by certain sections of society since Henry Stanley turned round to some wild eyed nutter he met in deepest darkest Africa and guessed “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” Lucky he got that right otherwise one of the most famous quotations of all time would have gone the way of the Dodo.  

Anyway, Fokesie hadn’t returned from Oz so Lucas managed to claw his way back into the team after agreeing to appear in public after getting some false eyelashes from his sister for Christmas. Can he flutter? Oh yes. Just like an elephant.  

Anyway Rich went on first and as the bloke he played fitted into one of his winnable categories ie. either a girl or not between the ages of 15 and 60, he won quite easily. 

We’ll quickly gloss over the last 3 games of my match as I hammered Dan Vince into submission in the first 2, thought the game was over and then the legs gave way after a weekend’s drinking. Oops. 

Bentos cruised into a 7 – 0 lead in his first game before he looked more closely at his opponent and realised that she was a) a girl and b) even worse, left handed. PANIC!!!!!!!!!! Now this tests the character very strongly. Left handers just shouldn’t be allowed in squash. They aren’t in hockey, so why squash? Questions should be asked. Resolutions passed. Where’s the revolution nowadays?! Anyway, after losing the first Marcus went on to beat Heather Sinclair in 4 as did Doylie, so after a little wobble the match was won.  

However, there was still Harps left at one. Playing against a very tall man in Jeremy Stopford, Dave showed just a little too much respect in the first and went down rather too easily. After a few words with the other Jeremy, the one on his side, Harps began to show a distinct lack of respect and ran his opponent into the ground to win a fine match 3-1. Mr Harps is playing some good stuff at the moment. 

So there you go. Westies are 10 points off top with 2 games in hand and playing league leaders Coleshill at fortress Olton on Monday. Please come and support – tee off at 7.30ish. 

And look! I didn’t even mention Gordon Brown, much to the relief of my wife, who seems to think I’m on some evil government database and will “disappear” à l’Argentines under Galtieri. Shows what this government has done to people really. 

And look Dave! Only 1,268 words and nearly all about squash!

The Westies continued their unbeaten, if disjointed, campaign to return to Division II with a tight win over LA Fitness II a week last Monday.

To be perfectly honest even with the slightly weakened side we put out for this match, it should have been not a stroll in the park, but at least a little easier than it was.

At 5, Bentos went on against a young county player by the name of Liam Robinson. In one of those matches reminiscent of why squash has been reduced to 11 points a game and American scoring in the professional scene, Bentos prevailed 3-2 having been 1-0 and 2-1 down. In the end that proved vital as the whole match ended up being hinged on the one game.

Lucas once again proved that his fitness is returning, if not his cojones. Unfortunately, it took him 1 game to work out that he was playing squash and not racquetball and by the time he had done this he was 1 down. Again, the little things proved vital as John Althan unfortunately took the 3^rd and 5^th games to win 3-2. If it hadn’t taken Rich a game to realise that the bat he was using was slightly longer and the ball slightly less bouncy, the result may have been different.

Doylie on at 3 made shorter work of Andy Jones in winning 3-0, all closeish mind you and the 3^rd of the squash players in the team, young Mr Harps, defeated Mark Fell in 4. Being one all after 2 games, Harps’ roadrunner skills ground his opponent into the dust and he dropped just 5 more points winning 3-1.

Married life appears to be treating Simon well. His smile has returned. There is a nice glow about his skin. Whether that’s from what’s in the water in Wythall or from his wife’s cooking I’m not sure. His squash is a bit hit and miss though. Partly due to married life and partly due to puffball. For 2 games he battled hard only to go down 10-8 in both, in the 3^rd the lure of the upcoming Australian honeymoon returned and he went down with nary whimper.

Hopefully a little rugby style changing room warm up on Monday against league leader’s Sutton II’s at home will bring back the snarl and manic running. We’ll see.

Well, we won’t actually. Due to various issues Sutton were unable to put a side out against us last Monday and unfortunately Harps had no choice but to claim the match, as not playing it would have put us 4 games behind, all of which would have probably meant us playing all the matches at the same time. You can imagine the queue of teams outside the club as they waited to take us on. I know we’re getting fitter but that would have been ridiculous.

So the climb continues, we’re 30 odd points off the top with several games in hand and Old Sil’s away in the final match this side of Xmas on the 15^th.

Many thanks to Solus Ceramics who have taken over the sponsorship of the squash team this year. If you have any commercial tiling needs, they can supply what you want. Numbers and email addresses etc. are on the courts or go to www.solusceramics.com.

Oh yes, one other thing. I am organising some club shirts and fleeces. There will be a choice of maroon and yellow squash shirts. Very good quality, proper tech fibre with the Bear and ragged staff, etc. The micro fleeces will be maroon. If you want one, either call me, email or put your name up on the list with your shirt size. I will put designs and prices up (probably be £20ish) etc. by the squash courts. I would like to place the order by Xmas so let me know ASAP. We need a minimum of 15 each to order, so please get moving!!!  

Do you know it seems like an eternity since I wrote one of these things and you poor buggers had to read it. Due to the vagaries of the Warwickshire Squash League this was our first match since the 20^th of October! That’s, like, months ago. Well, weeks maybe. In fact we were supposed to play Ardencote Manor a couple of weeks ago, but they obviously took fright and fused the lights on their courts and postponed the game. So I’m sure we’ll have a Champions League type backlog at some point in the future and be playing 2 matches on one night in a massive round robin competition.

But hey. Back to this one. If you go back into the past, to our last match against Hampton, I was having a right whinge about their underhand ways – you know practicing, not drinking heavily and generally taking the game far too seriously. I think I mentioned that thieving git Gordon Brown too. He really annoys me. He really does. Just that snuffle as he speaks and that totally insincere and suspicious grin that looks about as natural as a Bentos drop shot. Git. How did he ever get voted in as Prime Minister? Oh yes, I remember…….

Anyway. Sorry, had to get that off my chest.

Back to the game. Hampton has obviously read my previous piece and gone back to basics with their squash enjoyment. Richard Portas had disappeared, Dave Lea was off attending the birth of his 1^st child, so we know how he changed his lifestyle (Congratulations Dave by the way if you are reading this) and well, to be perfectly honest, there were really only a couple of their guys who’d played in that game straight after the turn of the year.

The Westies had decided to carry on their merry little way in the manner that they have always done. Harps had a “meeting” (definition: xmas shopping expedition)  in New York so was unavailable for the match, Si Fokes had just got married, so probably should have been unavailable and in Dave’s absence, the organisation of the match had passed to the little green man who lives on the moon, eating green cheese and smoking wacky tobacky.

So imagine Simon’s surprise, when at 5pm on the day of the match I asked him who was playing and he said,

“Me, you, Dave and I think Aida is, I’m not sure whether Dave’s asked him and Bentos”.

Pause.

“Dave’s in the US”.

Pause. Cogs whirr.

“That means he’s not playing tonight”.

“Yees”

Pause

“So who’s playing then?”

“I thought you were sorting the team out?”

Pause. Panic!!!!!

“Dave didn’t tell me he was going to the US!!!”  

“I’m sure he said he did, maybe he told everyone at your wedding?”

“They won’t remember that! Lucas can’t remember who he is after 4 pints of Carling let alone the lake of booze he drank between 5pm on Friday and 6am on Sunday morning!!!! We haven’t got a team, help! Help! I’ve just got Bl**dy married! I don’t need this! I’m already getting **** from the wife for doing what I want to do and now this!!!”

“Welcome to married life, Fokesie”.

Click. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, we ended up with 5 players. Well 4 and Lucas.

Rich had probably been told by Dave he was playing on Saturday, he just couldn’t remember, but just to make sure he was doing something, he arranged a puff ball game with Rob Owen for 6pm. So he was a bit startled to be told that he was first up on court straight after having had the former World Top 20 player run him around for an hour or so.

Surprisingly he went into a 2 – 0 lead. Unsurprisingly he then lost the next 2 to bring on a 5^th game. Now anyone who has been following Rich’s fortunes on the squash court of late, OK, I know it’s not that interesting, there must be one of you, apart from Rich? No? OK, well he’s had issues with players of a certain age. That age being between 15 and 65. So we were expecting him to fall over and pass out at this point. But no! Finding reserves that have been buried away, usually only to keep him going on vast drinking weekends, he clawed his way back into the match to win 3-2. Amazing.

Frey Bentos, Jez and Aida (who did remember Dave asking him to play) both won quite easily so it was up to Si to finish the match off and record a convincing 5-0 win. But we don’t do things that way here. Oh no. Simon had foolishly arranged his wedding for the Saturday before a team squash match. I mean, who does that? He won’t make THAT mistake again. With his mind obviously elsewhere – probably explaining to His Wife how it came to be that he was away from His Beloved on the 3^rd night of The Rest of Their Life Together. Or maybe he was thinking that this would show her who’s boss in the relationship. Excuse me while I snort cornflakes through my nose as I laugh. Maybe he was even thinking about that cold, cold shoulder he was going to receive when he got home. Maybe he was just going “la la la la, I’m not listening” in his head as he practised for future conversations with the new T&S.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t on squash. In fact he might as well just have gone onto the court, shaken hands and walked off. But no. We had some running around. A little rant or 2, but his heart wasn’t even in those. We had the “it’s the new wedding ring’s fault” for the 1^st game and then there were no more excuses, he couldn’t even be bothered to think up any of those. All over. 3-0.

But hey, the Westies won 4-1 and now we have to wait until the 1^st December until we play again. The wait. The wait. Very frustrating.   

As you can see, the world is still here and unless you can call the fact that we still have a Labour government and the usual financial crisis associated with them that they can do nothing about because they’ve spent all the money they’ve rapaciously taxed out of us, Armageddon, then you can presume we lost our battle to stay in League 2. No horses of the Apocalypse at Leamington Squash club, no 2^nd coming, no staying up. Ah well. As the saying goes, **** happens.

So here we are again, it’s the return of the winter squash season. After a summer of swimming to the club for our summer league fixtures (we came 3^rd by the way), winter is back with a vengeance. It’s cold, it’s wet, Gordon Brown’s removing what’s left of your hard earned cash after your wife and the banks have had their share, but we don’t care. Our shiny new squash courts are up and running and even better are full of heat. Oh yes. Heat. Mmmmm. Toastie. Toastie enough to butter up and eat with scrambled eggs. Excellent.

Due to sheer general laziness I was unable to write a report for last week’s fixture against Coleshill. Suffice to say Westies came out 3-2 winners in a hard fought match that probably shouldn’t have been as close as it was. But that’s Lucas’ fault. More in a bit. Doylie, Foksie and I all won with varying degrees of comfort – which considering most of us hadn’t played for a month was quite an achievement.

Harps had a toughie at 2 against Jaques du Preez which he lost 3-2. Unfortunately for Dave, Jaques was a bit fitter than he thought and although Dave managed to maintain some of those 10 minute rallies he likes, Jaques didn’t keel over and give up the ghost like some others may have done. No names spring to mind here at all.

Richie, ah Richie. Mr Lucas was looking for a change of fortune after a summer in which he hadn’t managed to beat any bloke between the ages of 16 and 65. Children, ladies and pensioners had all succumbed to his skills, but unfortunately we don’t play in a junior, vets or ladies league. So he lost pretty much all of his matches. Anyway, as per usual, Rich raced into a 2 – 0 lead with a mixture of power and the edge of his racquet. Was this his chance? Had to be. Had to be. Unfortunately his opponent once again didn’t fit into any of the beatable categories and came back to take the match 3-2. Rich’s ghost obviously gave up and left, got lost and never came back. Then to add insult to….injury? no, more lack of fitness, Rich then lost his place in the side for the next match to Frey Bentos. I think Rich has got lost as well, because we haven’t seen him since.

The Westies first home match of the season in our edible new fortress was against LA Fitness 3^rd team. Not much to say here except that everyone won pretty comfortably, the only blot on the landscape being Fokesie’s decision to faff around like a really big girl in the 3^rd game when everyone wanted to go to the bar. The marker was so annoyed he gave up and went anyway and left it for someone else.

So 18 points from the first match, 20 from the 2^nd and things have started well in Div 3. Anyway the next home match is a pleasant little local derby on 17^th November                              against  Hampton, see you there.