Comberton juniors climbing the county ladder.

The first ladder of the new squash season has plenty of Comberton interest. We have 11 players in the top 30 which is the most from any club in the county - although St Ivo are pushing us hard with a showing of 10 solid players.

But we currently score over St Ivo a bit in age group placings.

In the U15 boys we have a 1-2-3 with Tom Blair top (our current county champion!), Alex Gooding second, and Jeremy Harris at third place. We also have four in the top six at U17: Tom Symmons at 2; Chris Shaw at 3; Tom Blair (again!) at 4; and Jack Murphy at 6th place. We are also lucky to have Rob Dadds - who is our club champion and is 2nd in the U19 age group.

In the girls listing we have three stars in the top ten - Anna Carter 6th in the U19; Amy Lamb 3rd in the U17; and Selina Leung 2nd in the U15.

If we have a weak area have to say it is in the U13 - but looking at the junior sessions we have lots of potential in this age group. Some of our best players are missing because they did not get along to the County Closed Tournament which set the ladder up. But they will get a chance to play in the club leagues and get a foot on the ladder that way!

The other way for players to move up is to arrange challenge matches to people on the ladder. And this year there is a new prize for juniors playing the most challenge matches (notice that it does not say that you have to necessarily win the match). But if you challenge then you have to travel to your opponents club. Good luck with all your matches.

Onwards and upwards for CVC in the National Schools Squash Championship

Comberton Village College’s Boys Under-15 team turned in a consistently strong series of performances to ensure their progress into Stage Two of the National Schools Championship when they travelled to Kenilworth to play the second of their three Stage One matches.

Despite a hiccup before we even set off - the lock on the Squash Club door had broken and two of our players had their kit locked inside the club! – we made good time on the lengthy journey to the West Midlands. Alex Gooding and Jeremy Harris got us off to a good start with 3-0 and 3-1 wins respectively. Sam Bradshaw, after a wobble in the third game, assured us of overall victory with a 3-1 win, while Will Collett, playing in Tom Blair’s father’s shoes, fought back from 0-2 in games and 5-9 down in the third game to achieve a gritty 3-2 win over a diminutive but very talented opponent. Tom Blair capped the afternoon with an impressive display for a 3-0 victory to give Comberton a clean sweep in the tie.

Our final Stage One match will be at home against Oakham School in November, and we look forward to maintaining our form when we meet them!

Ray Scrivens
Team Manager

New Agricole U19 mixed-age doubles champions

We had a wonderful afternoon of doubles squash last Saturday (17th October). This was our mixed-age doubles competition which is generously funded by Jeremy Cole's company Agricole Ltd. It seems like part of the fun is a different format for each competition. This year with only four teams in the draw we chose a round robin set of games and planned provisionally tie breaks as first and second or third and fourth place deciders. In fact the games were incredibly close as all teams really picked up the pace through the afternoon. There was some wonderful play on display and everyone played in just the right spirit of friendly competitiveness.
But no-one had foreseen the final result which was an exact three-way draw between the top three teams! With everyone tired out after the first round games, we had to suddenly realize that we needed deciding sudden death games between the top three. Amazingly the standard of play did not drop one bit!. The final result giving us the first and second divided by only a single point. Our new champions were the competitive pairing of Neil Stutchbury with Jack Murphy. So very well done to them. Second place went to Martyn and Rory Symmons while Steve Swanton and Chris Shaw got the third place position. Mike Macnamee and Ollie Thorne ended up in fourth place.
Thanks are due again to Agricole for sponsorship and to all the players for making it such a fun tournament. Congratulations to our new champions Neil and Jack.

Saturday Junior Coaching (31st October)

This Saturday we will be running four coaching sessions. The first session is from 9.00 to 10.00 for beginners and the second is from 10.30 to 11.30 for more advanced players. A most advanced session is from 11.30 to 1.00pm and then there is a girls only session from 1.00pm to 2.00pm

Remember that eye-protection must be worn for all junior sessions.

There are goggles available for you to buy so you have your own pair.

Coaches

9.00 - 10.00 session. Coaches: Ray Scrivens and Andy Thorne
10.30 - 11.30 session. Coaches: Mike Macnamee and Ashok Babbar
11.30 - 13.00 session. Coaches: Mike Macnamee and Rory Symmons
13.00 - 14.00 session. Coaches: Mike Macnamee and Rory Symmons

Agricole U19 mixed-age doubles 2009

On Saturday 17th October, after our usual coaching sessions our juniors will be gearing up to play in the Agricole Cup. Play starts at 14.00 and is this year a round robin format with the final games at 16.15 so come along to see some thrilling action. The Agricole cup, which is kindly sponsored each year by Jeremy Cole of Agricole Ltd, is a friendly doubles tournament between adult:junior pairings. So each team must have a member from the younger and... ahem... older section of the club. Best is if the players are actually from the same family or household. So father paired with son or daughter or mother with son or daughter - or anything similar that crosses the generation gap.

Saturday Junior Coaching (17th October)

This Saturday we will be running four coaching sessions. The first session is from 9.00 to 10.00 for beginners and the second is from 10.30 to 11.30 for more advanced players. A most advanced session is from 11.30 to 1.00pm and then there is a girls only session from 1.00pm to 2.00pm

Remember that eye-protection must be worn for all junior sessions.

There are goggles available for you to buy so you have your own pair.

Coaches

9.00 - 10.00 session. Coaches: Andy Thorne and Keith Maloney
10.30 - 11.30 session. Coaches: Martyn Symmons and Steve Swanton
11.30 - 13.00 session. Coaches: Mike Macnamee, Martyn Symmons, and Steve Swanton
13.00 - 14.00 session. Coaches: Mike Macnamee and Martyn Symmons

Saturday Junior Coaching (10th October)

This Saturday we will be running four coaching sessions. The first session is from 9.00 to 10.00 for beginners and the second is from 10.30 to 11.30 for more advanced players. A most advanced session is from 11.30 to 1.00pm and then there is a girls only session from 1.00pm to 2.00pm

Remember that eye-protection must be worn for all junior sessions.

There are goggles available for you to buy so you have your own pair.

Coaches

9.00 - 10.00 session. Coaches: Ray Srivens and Keith Maloney
10.30 - 11.30 session. Coaches: Mike Macnamee and Ollie Thorne
11.30 - 13.00 session. Coaches: Mike Macnamee and Rory Symmons
13.00 - 14.00 session. Coaches: Mike Macnamee and Rory Symmons

Saturday Junior Coaching (3rd October)

This Saturday we will be running four coaching sessions. The first session is from 9.00 to 10.00 for beginners and the second is from 10.30 to 11.30 for more advanced players. A most advanced session is from 11.30 to 1.00pm and then there is a girls only session from 1.00pm to 2.00pm

Remember that eye-protection must be worn for all junior sessions.

There are goggles available for you to buy so you have your own pair.

Coaches

9.00 - 10.00 session. Coaches: Ray Srivens and Ollie Thorne
10.30 - 11.30 session. Coaches: Martyn Symmons and Andy Thorne
11.30 - 13.00 session. Coaches: Steve Swanton and Martyn Symmons
13.00 - 14.00 session. Coaches: Martyn Symmons and Steve Swanton