The Nottingham Squash Club was once again the venue for the National Civil Service Squash Singles Championship. Held in November 2014, it attracted players from all over the country and of all playing standards for a graded event which was both competitive and social in nature.
Strong competition for the Mens title
To provide a suitable level of squash for all abilities, the men’s competition consisted of 4 grades. With a high number of A grade players, the A and B grades were combined for the first knock-out round. Last year’s Champion, James Hodson, headed a strong line-up with 4 previous champions ready to challenge him in the latter stages. The first round saw the strongest contenders move into the A grade competition while the losers headed to the B grade event.
James looked impressive and duly advanced to the final without dropping a game, though team player John Ashton took him close in two of his semi-final games. The match had some good long rallies with both players moving and retrieving well but John made a few too many unforced errors to really put any pressure on James in the long term. John in his previous round had put out the ex-mens captain Merv Davies in a tight match.
The seeded players in the other half of the draw were five times Champion Marc Aldridge and the youthful Tony Webb. Marc firstly had to deal with former Champion John McFarlane and then came up against Tony in the semi-final. This semi final was strongly contended with both playing some excellent squash in a friendly but competitive manner. Tony’s retrieving was phenomenal with Marc boasting from every area of the court and as they know each others game inside out, it was always going to be close. In fact it was nip and tuck all the way through with Tony coming through the winner in the 5th game. A superb match to watch but would the incredible amount of effort expended by both players have an impact on the final?
Interest was high and the gallery was packed for the final between Tony and James, a rerun of the 2010 final. The match was a splendid exhibition of superb tickle boasts, drops and nicks. Both players retrieved the ball extremely well and seized the initiative in the rallies with the accuracies of their returns. Some cross court shots played by them were worthy of being compared to the leading Egyptian players in terms of accuracy and disguise. After 3 tight games, James revenged his defeat of 2010 and took the CSSC mens Championship title for the third year running. Congratulations to James for a well earned hat trick.
Mens B, C and D Grade Events
Just as hard fought as the Championship grade were the events for different standard players and these produced some excellent squash. In the Mens B event both Mark Cullington (CSSC Over 35 Champion) and Glen Appleby had some tough matches to reach the final. In this the opening game went to Mark who made fewer mistakes at the front of the court. Games two and three were won apiece by the player who was able to play a deeper drive followed by an accurate drop. In the fourth game Mark went ahead then seemed to lose focus and with Glen keeping the ball in play Mark’s errors cost him the game. In the 5th, Glenn seemed the more focussed on victory playing a number of tight drops and deep backhand drives and took this game and the match 3-2.
The C and D grade players were initially combined into a knock out playing the normal scoring system to 9 points with winners in the first round progressing to the C grade event. In this Craig Blurton dropped only one game getting to the final where he met Thomas Littleton who had a similarly smooth ride through the early rounds. In the final Craig began strongly in the first two games, taking them to love and 4. Tom recovered to take the third 9-2 but could not stem the tide and Craig ran out a 3-1 winner.
The D grade, comprising the 6 players who lost their first matches in the CD competition, was played as two Round Robin groups followed by semis and a final. Two newcomers Marc Weiss and Gareth Wu battled it out in the final for the title with Gareth emerging the winner.
Ladies events
There were unfortunately only 5 ladies entering this year. Of these two were A grade players resulting in a single final match which eventually wasn’t played as one of the ladies went down with a gastric bug the day before the competition. Keeley Grindle was thus awarded the Ladies Singles title, her second. Keeley also played in the mens AB event and the three CD grade ladies played in the mens CD event as well as playing their own competition. This gave the ladies plenty of squash.
In the Ladies CD Round Robin Shena Rolfe won all her matches to take the number one spot, with Danielle Smith taking second place.
Plate events were run in all the grades keeping everyone busy on court both days.
CSSC Squash organiser Linda Parsley presented prizes and trophies. She thanked Nottingham Squash Club for their excellent facilities and hospitality and also the players for their sportsmanship. The Friday evening Quiz had been popular and provided players with the opportunity to relax and socialise after a day’s squash. The players feedback was positive with the squash, excellent facilities and friendly atmosphere alongside competitive spirit being noted as key aspects of players enjoyment.
The next CSSC Squash event will be the team competition on 5th/6th February 2015. The Masters (Age Group Singles) event will take place in Nottingham on 24th/25th April, with a one day Racketball event on the 25th April. Please see our website (http://www.cssc-squash.co.uk) for further details and entry forms.
At next year’s CSSC Multi-Sport Games in Loughborough on 17/18th September 2015, we will be running a Racketball competition. Details for the Games can be found on the CSSC website (http://www.cssc.co.uk)
