As you can imagine, I’ve had a few nights over the last week, where at 3am, I’m sat alone with my thoughts in the dark....with my deepest and darkest fears, real and imagined. Spectres of sins past, transgressions considered and felonies planned, float before my eyes like....well, ghosts I suppose.

I sat last night in my room, my mind a maelstrom of thought when, suddenly, I had a vision of real clarity. I saw into the depths of another man’s soul. I saw his hopes, his dreams, his fears....oh yes, his fears.....

Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I was in Justyn Price’s head. He was awake. In the dark. Ruminating on life, the universe and everything.  

His thoughts, as mine, had done the rounds. But eventually, in the still, cold watches of the night, when reality and imagination merge and are as one, he got round, as you inevitably do, to the immutable facts of life. The things one should never do as they lead to irretrievable disaster:

One, never get involved in a land war in Asia,

two, never tell your wife that you think her sister is rather attractive,

and three, most importantly, never, NEVER, EVER let Lucas be the only player in your side to win his match.

Foolishly and I imagine to his eternal regret – Justyn has let this happen in his first outing as Westies Men’s 2s captain. I presume the barrage of “Me, me, me, me, me!” from Fatboy during dinner after the match has now ensured that he and the rest of the team do not let this happen again.

Against rather a strong Cov & North Warwicks III who have also just joined the league, Doylie lost 3-0, Fatboy took the honours 3-2 in his match, Justyn lost 3-1, Vicky and Kev Taylor both went down 3-0. Not the most auspicious start to the season – but hey ho, better it happens now than at the end of the season when we need a win to get promoted!

The Westies Men’s 1s are in the middle of what seems like an interminable run of away games. This week, they had the pleasure of travelling to Kenilworth to face their 2^nd team. In matches past there have been some pretty good ones between them and us. This ranks up there with the 25^th time you were forced to watch Notting Hill with your Missus for memorability.

Once again the closest the opposition came to getting a point was when one of our players got lost and turned up after everyone else had won their matches. This time it was Tasty Tatey using Dave’s satnav. In the end Tasty, Red Mist Rocket Robbie, Head Hacker Harps, The Man from Dachau and new boy Ali Jafari, all won 3-0. And Westies won 20 – 0 in points.

I’ve been asked to think of a nickname for Ali, which, as I haven’t met him yet could be difficult. Maybe The Babe or The Toddler.....because to be perfectly honest, everyone needs to learn to walk before they can run. I’ll get advice from Tasty Tatey on that one.

A couple of years ago we had a difficult year in Div 2, but this year it all seems a bit different. I assume that the league is going to get tougher, the evidence from the last 2 matches seems to show it. Last week the opposition totalled 35 points in all at an average of 2.33 points per game, this week it was 34 at an average of 2.62, so at least the matches appear to be getting harder.

The tie of the week was at Solihull Arden between the 2 clubs’ ladies teams. This would have been at the top of my report but as most men will know, the concept of time is never highest on the list of female priorities. Any bloke who has waited for their significant other to get ready for a night out will testify to this, so it was only at the end of the week after I had written the other reports that I managed to get the results of this one.

And what a pleasure it is too.........the Westies Ladies travelled to Arden and in a very tight match beat them 3-2. Sue Underwood and Lindsey Vickers had a tight one with the Arden girl sneaking it 3-2. Jane Owen at 4 also had a hard match against Grace Talbot coming out on top 3-2. Lisa Key unfortunately went down 3-0 before Vicky Davies defeated Jane Armstrong 3-2 to set up a decider between Mandy Gatherer and Ann Frew. Mandy proved too strong and took her match 3-1, winning the tie for our girls. Fantastic result.  

Anyway, there you go. Speak to you next week!

Oh joy I hear you say. Oh rapture! The new squash season is upon us. This means that you have the pleasure of me writing 1000 words of utter rubbish a week about topics of complete indifference to you all, that have scant relevance to a) the game of squash as a whole and b) the reality of anything that actually takes place in the matches in question, but do keep me entertained on my journeys to work as I decide what topic to write about this time.

This season, in addition to the men’s and the ladies team, the club have decided to put a men’s 2^nd team into the Warwickshire league – ably led by Justyn Price. The teams will therefore, be known imaginatively enough as Westies Men’s 1s, 2s and Ladies. This has given me rather a difficult conundrum. Based on the fact that I will probably be writing the reports (I am basing this on the evidence of last year’s ladies’ postings), do I do 3 reports of the same length or just one of a similar length with just less about each match?  

Our esteemed chairman, whose squash racquet adorns the wall next to the toilet in the corridor outside the bar – testament to his obvious preference to redtop newspapers rather than broadsheets, has asked that I use fewer long and complicated words in my reports for his benefit. This rather answers the question I posed in the previous paragraph. I will, therefore, do more tabloid and less “thinking” articles. More Jim Carrey, less Monty Python.

Anyway, the club has attracted some new players into all teams. This has currently (until I get to know my new colleagues better) reduced my capacity for gratuitous abuse towards my team mates. However, for those of you who know Rob Owen, I’m sure you’ll agree that he will provide me with plenty of ammunition until I’ve worked out what I can get away with, with the others.

Anyway, back to the squash. The season starter for Westies Men’s 1s away at Coleshill last Monday (5^th Oct) was an absolute disaster......for Coleshill!! Now we’ve had some pretty good matches against them over the last few years, but I’ve rarely played in any match where the only points the opposition have nearly won is because one of our players (me, in fact) has turned up 50 minutes after the start of the tie and nearly forfeited his game because we’ve won all the others already. But that’s how it was. Sorry Simon, too many long words.....

At 5, The Head Hacker Harps Hammers his way through Cheshire at a rapid rate of knots!

At 4, Basher Bish Boshes Harley to make sure there’s no Cockney rebellion!

At 3, Fokesie only needs to use 1 of his hands to (slowly and with help) count the number of points Williams gets!

At 2, Red Mist Rocket Robbie Romps his Rampant way to a Whiteman Whitewash!

And at 1, Tasty Tatey Taters Du Preez in three!

There you go, 20 points to nil. Not too many of them about!

On to the Ladies – a similar story, a similarly disastrous start to the season for Knowle & Dorridge!

At 5, Manjeet the Marauder Marvellously Mangles Mary!

At 4, Owen (no relation to Red Mist Rocket Robbie) Opens a can of Whuppass all over Smithy!

At 3, Key unlocks the door and Jill comes tumbling after! (sorry Lisa, that was crap – but blame Fokesie, he made me do it)

At 2, The Blonde Bomber Batters the Ollivent to create a really big Pachyderm and chips takeaway! 

And at 1, Magnificent Mandy Mops up the 5-0!

There you go – 20-3. A pleasure all round.

And now................on to the Westies Men’s 2s. Unfortunately Sutton (Penns) realising that they had to face the might of Fatboy, Frey Bentos aka Squirrel Boy, Justin and the rest of the mob, took fright and ran away. To fight another day? I think so, but I’m not sure.

Anyway as this is a tabloid report, it behoves me to say that we are obviously the greatest club in the world. Why other clubs even feel the need to turn up is beyond me. The leagues will be ours just after Xmas and nothing will ever go wrong because champagne squash is the only way we know and it never goes wrong........ever.

Next week, I’ll be back on Gordon Brown’s case because he annoys me even more and more and there will be some interesting revelations about several of our best players’ private lives which will self destruct the teams just before the most important games of the year.

Well Fokesie did say he wanted tabloid...........................