Junior Report to the Club AGM

Our Club Annual General Meeting met last week to discuss our successes last season and our plans for the future. Juniors are a big big part of both these things. Here is what the meeting heard in a report given by Tom Blair - winner of the Cilla Fuller Award for most improved junior.


"Comberton Juniors have had an excellent season with perhaps their best ever performances in County competitions:-

1. County Closed September 2008: Jeremy Harris was winner of U-13. And Tom Symmons successfully defending his county U15 title with Tom Blair as runner up. Tom Symmons also won the U17 boys plate with Comberton player Chris Shaw as runner up. Jack Murphy won the U15 boys plate with Will Collett as runner up.

2. Area Academy Tournament Ipswich: This was the first year for a new Area set-up which brings Essex and Herts into the Academy region this meant much harder matches for our juniors. However our U15 boys were well placed.


3. England Squash National Schools Competition : The U15 Schools team won their first round regional league convincingly. And were then defeated by the narrowest of margins in a second round knockout match by the High Wycombe Royal Grammar. The Hill Road team consisting of mostly Comberton Club older juniors also made it through to the second round of the U19 competition.

4. Juniors in Club Adult League teams:
The Comberton mens 4th team had a number of juniors competing in the 4th Division of the Cambridgeshire Adult Leagues. Tom Blair made the greatest contribution to the team playing in a total of 11 hard matches. Chris Shaw played in 8. And Nick Hipwell played in 4. While Tom Symmons had the best overall result with a total of 5 wins for the Comberton team over the season.

5. 2008 Brian Fielding tournament: In this annual tournament in memory of Brian Fielding, Comberton girl Selina Leung was runner up in the Group A tournament and Tom Blair was semi-finalist in the Group B tournament.

6. County Boys U15 team: Four Comberton players played in the County U15 team which competed in the regional stages of the England Squash Inter-county competition.

7. Cambridgeshire junior leagues end-of-season tournament:
Selina Leung won the U15 girls.
Euan Macnamee won the U19 boys competition.
Jeremy Harris won the U13 boys competion.
Amy Lamb won the U17 girls plate.

8. Club Tournaments: Club final - Rob Dadds was club champion. And Tom Blair was runner up in the Club Plate. Jo Weavers was the U13 junior winner while Tom Symmons retained his U16 title.

9. The Final county ladder of the season shows juniors from Comberton out-number any other club: we have 16 players in the top 40. And we have 2 girls in the top 15 girls.

These figures show what an amazing season Comberton Junior Squash has had, but as always it couldn't have been done without a lot of effort and time given by a number of people who have helped with individual and team coaching, organization, and transportation. So we would like to say thank you to the following people: our parents, Ray, Martyn, Mike, Steve, Ashok, Keith, Andy and Ollie Thorne, Andy D'Alessandro, Bob Maison.

And particular thanks to Derek Fuller for advice, organizing the Club Tournaments and lots of other Club activities.

Juniors would also like to comment on suggestions for improvement of the Club facilities. The most popular choice was to have a glass back court and seating area on Court 1 - much like the end court of Hunts County Squash Club. Another popular suggestion is a key fob system for entering the building, this would mean only valid members would be able to use the courts. A third suggestion was to have our own vending machine for drinks and small snacks. "