Agricole Cup Under-16 Competition.

For our last Saturday session in 2011 on the 18th December we had a great fun tournament - the Agricole Cup.

This is an adult-junior squash doubles competition which was originally designed to be for family pairings but the rules also allow juniors to trade-in their actual Dad or Mum for a supposedly more competitive player.

This happened last year when Tom Blair recruited Derek Fuller to be his partner - going on to win the competition. Derek Fuller has been Tom's squash mentor for several years and so this was an excellent adult-junior pairing.

The Agricole Cup is sponsored by Jeremy Cole http://www.agricole.co.uk/ as an annual event with an Ul6 and an U19 age groups (for the junior member of each team obviously!).

Last Saturday we played the U16 competition between eight teams including four actual family pairs and even two from the same family!

David and Rob Snelling, Ellis and Keith Maloney, Mary and Helen Snelling and Will and Nick Collett.

The first round was as two leagues with each team playing each for maximum points from just a single game to 15.

The top two teams from each league went to the knockout stage while the bottom two went to the plate competition.

Top points in one league went to Lawrence Temple/Julie Miller and Todd Roberts/Martyn Symmons. Top of the other league were Will/Nick Collett and Sam Hicks/Andy D'Alessandro.

In the following hard-fought plate League Henry Prime/Mike Macnamee came second above Ellis/Keith Maloney and Mary/Helen Snelling. However winners of the plate were an undefeated Rob and David Snelling - one of our highest placed family pairs - who were both awarded special prizes this year.

In the knockout semi-finals Todd/Martyn and Will/Nick in the best of three games - in a close match Todd/Martyn won through to the final; while in another close match Andy and Sam beat Julie and Lawrence.

In the final Todd and Martyn tried every possible tactic but could not outmanoeuvre the combination cf Sam on the forehand with an amazingly quick coverage of the front court from Andy - Sam and Andy won the trophy in a convincing three games. Although not a family pairing Andy is Sam's coach and so it was again good to see the Agricole supporting squash skills passing from one generation to the next.

Jeremy Cole presented them with their trophy reminding everyone that there was still the U19 competition to play for this season

Both Dave and Rob Snelling and Will and Nick Collett received special awards as the highest placed family teams.

Saturday Junior Coaching - Happy Christmas

Our Saturday coaching sessions will re-start in the new term. Starting again on the 8th January 2011.

Until then have a great holiday and hope Santa is good to you.

Merry Christmas from all the coaches at Comberton Village College Squash Club.

Saturday Junior Coaching (11th December)

his Saturday we continue with our new revised schedule with four hour-and-a-quarter sessions.

The first session is completely mini-squash and runs from 9.00 to 10.00.

The second session (JS1) is for beginner level squash and will be from 10.00 to 11.15

The third session (JS2) is intermediate and is from 11.15 to 12.30.

The fourth session (JS3) is from 12.30 noon to 1.45pm and is for more advanced players.

Finally our elite (JS4) session will be limited to practice 1.45 to 2.45pm as the full session is moved to Sunday from 11.30 to 1.00 pm with guest level III coach Bob Maison.

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

Coaches

9 am - 10 am mini-squash session. Coaches: Ashok Babbar, Janet Banks, and Julie Miller
10 am - 11.15 am JS1 session. Coaches: Ray Scrivens and Keith Maloney
11.15 am - 12.30 pm JS2 session. Coaches: Ray Scrivens and Ollie Thorne
12.30 - 1.45 pm JS3 session. Coaches: Martyn Symmons and Ollie Thorne
1.45 pm - 2.45 pm JS4 practice session. Coaches: Martyn Symmons and Mike Macnamee.

December JS4 sessions move to Sunday morning.

Our JS4 elite coaching session in December move from Saturday afternoon to Sunday at 11.30. These will be on Sunday 5th December and 11th December.

Our guest coach for these session is Bob Maison who is a level 3 coach well-known to many of our juniors. Bob is coach to our top juniors such as Rob Dadds, Tom Blair, and Joe Weavers. He has also coached our players at county and regional squads.

For these Sunday sessions he will be doing intensive triple and pairs work with you on the theme of 'Expectations for Elite Players - Train as you play- Play as you train- Strive for excellence'

These sessions will nicely complete our JS4 series before the end of term on 17th December. JS4 will restart in the spring term after Christmas.

Saturday Junior Coaching (4th December)

This Saturday we continue with our new revised schedule with four hour-and-a-quarter sessions.

The first session is completely mini-squash and runs from 9.00 to 10.00.

The second session (JS1) is for beginner level squash and will be from 10.00 to 11.15

The third session (JS2) is intermediate and is from 11.15 to 12.30.

The fourth session (JS3) is from 12.30 noon to 1.45pm and is for more advanced players.

Finally our elite (JS4) session will be limited to practice 1.45 to 2.45pm as the full session is moved to Sunday from 11.30 to 1.00 pm with guest level III coach Bob Maison.

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

Coaches

9 am - 10 am mini-squash session. Coaches: Ashok Babbar, Janet Banks, and Julie Miller
10 am - 11.15 am JS1 session. Coaches: Ray Scrivens and Chris Shaw
11.15 am - 12.30 pm JS2 session. Coaches: Ray Scrivens and Martyn Symmons
12.30 - 1.45 pm JS3 session. Coaches: Martyn Symmons and Mike Macnamee
1.45 pm - 3.30 pm JS4 session. Coach: Martyn Symmons .

Comberton’s girls at their first County training session

The Girls’ County training session held at Fenland Squash Club on November 28th was attended by four Comberton players – the biggest representation our club has had at one of these sessions for quite a few years!

All four are relatively new to squash, but they all gave a good account of themselves at the event, run by Girls’ County Junior Manager and Level 2 coach Glynis Fenwick. The session featured two hours of varied coaching routines run by Glynis, Level 3 coach Rebecca Moore and one of the top Cambs junior girls, Hayley Green. The coaching was followed by a series of one-game friendly matches.

Emma Bithell and Anne-Lucie Bugain, both new to squash this year, put in a lot of work and were clearly learning a great deal as the session progressed. Emma generally served well in her matches, but now needs to work on keeping her distance from the ball during rallies. Anne-Lucie struggled at times to get a consistent service and will need to gain confidence in using her backhand return of serve, but she played well in rallies and is a confident volleyer. Mary Snelling was the most experienced of our four players, serving accurately for the most part, moving well around the court and achieving good depth in a lot of her shots, though she needs to focus on having her racket ready as she approaches the ball. Our youngest representative, ten-year-old Casey Miller, showed promising racket skills and should develop a stronger serve with practice. Comberton almost had a fifth girl at the session: CVC Year Seven Charlotte Springham was in the end unable to make this date but has registered to be notified of future sessions.

All our girls seemed to enjoy themselves, and it was a good opportunity for them to mix with girls from other clubs on an occasion when they weren’t outnumbered ten to one by the boys!

Ray Scrivens
Comberton Junior Development Coach

A good start for Comberton Junior Second Team.

Comberton’s opening fixture in Division One took place at Fenland Squash Club on 21 November. All three clubs involved had agreed to field four players rather than the usual three, so we had Henry Prime and Matt Haynes each playing a league match at #3 plus a ladder challenge match, with Charlie McRobie and Finn Savage filling the #1 and 2 spots.

Our rubber versus Ramsey Abbey School’s team went very well: Finn and Henry recorded comfortable 3-0 wins, while Charlie played superbly to outlast the talented Christopher Rej 3-1. Our match against Fenland was tougher, as all their players were older and bigger than ours. Matt played with great spirit , and although he lost 3-0 he won plenty of points and never gave up on rallies. Finn had a very close match, finally losing 11-9 in the fourth game. Charlie lost his first game 12-14 after a tremendous battle but showed great character, playing some excellent squash to outlast Fenland #1 Will Blake in four close games. In total we beat Ramsey by 12 points to 1 and lost to Fenland by 10 points to 4.

Both Matt and Henry won their ladder challenge matches, so overall two of our players won one game each while the other two scored victories in both their matches – a very satisfactory outcome!

Ray Scrivens
Team Manager