Seven mixed squash teams of all standards came to the Nottingham Squash Club on 6/7 February 2014 for the 2013/14 CSSC Squash Team Championships. Many of the main Departments were represented with 35 players from all over the country competing in a friendly, though competiveness atmosphere.
SPARTA, last year’s Champions, were unable to raise a team this year, but we saw the welcome return of the RCSL (Revenue and Customs) team along with a new team from the NW Region. The seven teams of 3 men and 2 ladies played on the Thursday in 2 groups. The winners and runners-up of each group would progress to the semi-finals on the Friday with a Plate competition for the other teams.
Group A with 3 teams played a ‘Round Robin’ format. The RCSL team beat the HASSRA ‘B’ team in the first tie but were then beaten by the DSRA (Defence) team, though RCSL took one match when 4th string Pat High-Comer overcame Defence’s Lorna Riggs. Defence then went on to beat the HASSRA ‘B’ team, thus winning the group and a spot in the semi-finals the following day, joined by RCSL who took 2nd place. HASSRA ‘B’ in 3rd place moved into the Plate event.
In the second group each team played 2 ties to decide the places in the semi-finals. In one of the first ties HASSRA ‘A’ played the Land Registry team and an unfortunate injury to HASSRA’s top lady, Keeley Grindle, saw the HASSRA teams significantly affected. HASSRA ‘A’ won the tie but with team captain, Siân, accompanying Keeley to the hospital, both A and B teams were short of players for the rest of the day.
DEFRA were up against the new NW Region team in their first tie, but managed to pull off a 4-1 win against them. They then beat the Land Registry team 4-1 to book their place in the semi-finals. HASSRA ‘A’, despite being short of a player, were able to win their second tie against the NW Region team to take their semi final place. Land Registry and NW Region moved into the Plate event.
To relax on the Thursday evening all the players (joined by Keeley in plaster) met together in the Club bar for an enjoyable social evening. After supper a light-hearted quiz resulted in victory for the NW Region team with the RCSL team a close second.
The first of the semi-finals on the Friday morning saw DSRA play DEFRA. DEFRA’s team was not as strong as in previous years and they could not contain the Defence team, losing 5-0.
The second semi-final was between RCSL and HASSRA ‘A’. Siân Hughes, HASSRA’s captain, stepped up from the B team to fill the gap left by Keeley. HASSRA took the tie 5-0, though not before Siân was taken all the way by RCSL’s no.5, Hilary Craven.
So the final saw DSRA up against HASSRA ‘A’. With the strongest men of the competition all in the DSRA team, the HASSRA ladies role was key. Jackie Codman (HASSRA no.4) was too strong for Lorna Riggs but Siân was not able to overcome DSRA’s Lisa Wallbank. With their men winning all their matches, DSRA took the tie 4-1 regaining the trophy and notching up their 11th win in 19 years of the competition.
The 3rd/4th play off between DEFRA and RCSL resulted in a close match and a 4-1 win to DEFRA.
The Plate competition was played as a Round Robin between HASSRA ‘B’, Land Registry and NW Region. After 3 close ties, all won by 3 matches to 2, NW Region emerged the winner with Land Registry runners up.
Trophies and medals were presented by CSSRA’s President Marian Holmes, who had competed this year in the DEFRA team. Organiser, Linda Parsley, thanked the Nottingham Squash Club for providing us once again with their excellent facilities and indicated her appreciation of all the players for their sportsmanship throughout the competition. Appreciated by many of the players had been a sports massage therapist to ease aching muscles and joints and help to avoid injury over the 2 days of the event. Some players were heard to comment that it was worth attending the event for this alone! The friendliness of the event, while competitive, was also mentioned as a key enjoyment factor.
Full results can be found by downloading this Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.
The next Squash Event will be the Masters (Age Group) Tournament, to be held in Nottingham on the 28th and 29th March 2014 combined with a Racketball competition on the 29th March at the same venue. Information on this and other CSSC squash events can be found on the CSSC squash website – http://www.cssc-squash.co.uk
After that, next season gets off to a great start with the Squash Singles being held at the Nottingham Squash Club on 21st & 22nd November 2014. This will be a graded event to cater for all standards. As always this event has a great fantastic atmosphere with a social event included. Details soon on the CSSC squash website – http://www.cssc-squash.co.uk