History | Results
Gallery from Fritz Borchert
all photos ©Fritz Borchert 2002

Chaloner clinches it for England
Ian McKenzie reports from Boblingen
on a dramatic men's final ...

Chris Walker recovers from the party
to report on a fantastic win for England

England Retain European Titles In Contrasting Styles
England successfully defended the men's and women's titles in the European Team Championships, but did so in contrasting styles. Whilst the women's team cruised to a 3-0 victory over sixth seeds Scotland without conceding a single game, the men survived one of the most dramatic finals on record, twice coming from behind to draw 2-2 against second seeds France, and claim victory only after an 8-7 countback on games.

England's women are celebrating a remarkable unbeaten record in the European  Championships since 1978, while England's men clinched their tenth successive title and the 27th since the inaugural men's competition in 1973.

Campion leads England to win #25
Beachill stems the French tide

Tit-Bits from Squash in Bayern

Stage 2 Men    Stage 2 Women

Results page from Boblingen

• Previous venues, teams, winners
   
• Finishing positions by Country

Final Placings - Men:

1  England
2  France
3  Wales
4  Netherlands
5  Scotland
6  Germany
7  Finland
8  Switzerland
9  Ireland
10 Sweden
11 Spain
12 Italy
13 Denmark
14 Belgium
15 Czech Republic
16 Austria
17 Slovenia
18 Hungary
19 Norway
20 Russia
21 Bulgaria

1  England
2  Scotland
3  Germany
4  Denmark
5  Belgium
6  Netherlands
7  France
8  Wales
9  Ireland
10 Switzerland
11 Spain
12 Austria
13 Slovakia
14 Sweden
15 Italy

Men's final:
[1]ENGLAND 2 [2]FRANCE 2  (England win 8-7 on games countback) (Del Harris lost to Jean-Michel Arcucci 9-2 9-3 5-9 3-9 2-9; Lee Beachill bt Gregory Gaultier 3-9 9-2 9-5 9-4; Chris Walker lost to Thierry Lincou 4-9 5-9 9-10; Mark Chaloner bt Renan Lavigne 9-0 10-8 9-0)
Women's final:
[1]ENGLAND 3 [6]SCOTLAND 0  (Stephanie Brind bt Wendy Maitland 9-2 10-8 9-0; Cassie Campion bt Pamela Nimmo 9-7 9-5 9-2; Linda Charman-Smith bt Senga Macfie 9-6 9-4)

    Men's 3rd place play-off:
[4]WALES 4 [7]NETHERLANDS 0 (Scott Fitzgerald bt Gabor Marges 9-3 9-2 9-4; Gavin Jones bt Marc Reus 5-9 9-4 9-7 9-0; David Evans bt Tommy Berden 9-2 9-2; Alex Gough bt Lucas Buit 9-2 4-9 9-0 8-10 9-4)
    Men's 5th place play-off:
[12]SCOTLAND 3 [6]GERMANY 1  (David Heath bt Lars Osthoff 9-2 9-7 9-1; Neil Frankland lost to Edgar Schneider 4-9 9-4 2-9 5-9; John White bt Simon Frenz 9-1 9-3 4-9 10-8; Martin Heath bt Stefan Leifels 9-3 9-2 9-0)
    Men's 7th place play-off:
[3]FINLAND 3 [9]SWITZERLAND 1  (Tatu Murronmaa bt Marco Eggenberger 2-9 3-9 9-3 9-6 9-3; Petri Laaksonen lost to Marco Daetwyler 9-4 3-9 2-9 0-9; Olli Tuominen bt Lars Harms 9-1 10-8 9-0; Juha Raumolin bt Andre Holderegger 9-1 9-5 9-0)
    Men's 9th place play-off:
[14]IRELAND 4 [5]SWEDEN 0  (Patrick Foster bt Johan Jungling 3-9 9-3 9-7 9-3; Steve Richardson bt Ola Jangbecker 9-3 9-1 6-9 9-5; Derek Ryan bt Daniel Forslund 9-7 9-0 9-0; Liam Kenny bt Christian Drakenberg 9-5 9-1 3-9 9-3)
    Men's 11th place play-off:
[10]SPAIN 3 [8]ITALY 1  (Alex Garbi bt Matteo Vaccari 9-3 9-1 9-7; Iago Cornes bt Andrea Torricini 9-4 9-6 9-7; Oriol Salvia lost to Andrea Capella 5-9 1-9 1-9; Borja Golan bt Francesco Busi 10-8 9-1 9-3)
    Men's 13th place play-off:
[13]DENMARK 2 [15]BELGIUM 2  (Denmark win 8-7 on games countback) (Danny Knudson bt Olivier van Heghe 9-2 9-6 8-10 9-4; Mads Korsbjerg lost to Steve Dries 9-0 1-9 8-9 9-4 4-9; Mikkel Korsbjerg lost to Peter Pastijn 4-9 3-9 1-9; Michael Hansen bt Cedric Sadin 9-1 9-1 9-0)
    Men's 15th place play-off:
[18]CZECH REPUBLIC 3 [11]AUSTRIA 1  (Martin Dzur bt Jakob Dirnberger 9-6 9-2 9-7; Martin Stepan lost to Michael Gruber 2-9 7-9 9-6 9-7 1-9; Jan Koukal bt Leopold Czaska 7-9 9-8 9-0 9-0; Milos Pokorny bt Andreas Fuchs 9-4 9-7 9-2)
    Men's 17th place play-off:
[17]SLOVENIA 2 [20]HUNGARY 2  (Slovenia win 8-6 on games countback) (Goran Vuckovic bt Gergely Joo 9-3 9-1 9-2; Damir Bezan bt Robert Erdosi 9-3 9-0 9-2; Gasper Fecur lost to Andras Torok 5-9 2-9 1-9; Klemen Gutman lost to Mark Krajcsak 1-9 10-9 2-9 10-8 6-9)
    Men's 19th place play-off:
[19]NORWAY 4 RUSSIA 0  (Chris Petter Haukedal bt Serguei Kostrykine 9-3 9-5 9-0; Hans Olav Torgersen bt Maxim Shokin 9-0 9-0 9-0; Morten Mandt bt Alexei Severinov 9-3 9-2 9-1; Raymond Pettersen bt Pavel Sergueev 9-0 9-0 9-0)
    21st place: BULGARIA

    Women's 3rd place play-off:
[5]GERMANY 2 [2]DENMARK 1  (Kathrin Rohrmüller lost to Line Hansen 7-9 9-10 9-5 4-9; Sabine Tillman bt Ellen Petersen 10-8 9-7 2-9 9-3; Karin Beriere bt Julie Dorn Jensen 9-5 9-3 9-3)
    Women's 5th place play-off:
[9]BELGIUM 2 [4]NETHERLANDS 1  (Katline Cauwels bt Daphne A. Jelgersma 9-1 9-4 9-7; Sil Schrijvels bt Milja Dorenbos 9-5 9-2 9-1; Kim Hannes lost to Vanessa Atkinson 7-9 1-9)
    Women's 7th place play-off:
[7]FRANCE 2 [11]WALES 1  (Corinne Castets bt Karen Hargreaves 3-9 9-3 9-0 9-3; Laurence Bois bt Hayley James 9-3 9-3 9-0; Isabelle Stoehr lost to Tegwen Malik 4-9 6-9)
    Women's 9th place play-off:
[8]IRELAND 2 [3]SWITZERLAND 1  (Aisling Blake lost to Olivia Hauser 6-9 9-2 1-9 8-10; Anna McGeever bt Gabi Hegi 9-3 9-0 9-1; Madeline Perry bt Manuela Zehnder 7-9 9-5 9-1 9-1)
    Women's 11th place play-off:
[10]SPAIN 2 [13]AUSTRIA 1  (Laia Sans bt Ines Gradnitzer 9-1 3-9 9-0 9-10 9-1; Stela Carbonell lost to Birgit Coufal 9-7 1-9 9-10 1-9; Elisabet Sado bt Pamela Pancis 9-4 2-9 9-1 9-6)
    Women's 13th place: [15]SLOVAKIA
    Women's 14th place: SWEDEN
    Women's 15th place: [14]ITALY

Chris Walker
enjoyed the weekend, and enjoyed the party ...

England, Men and Women's
European Team Champions ....... again!

Everyone assumes that, because the strongest team on paper is the number one seed, they will win!

It must be the Green Magic

I have had the privilege of playing for England more times than I can remember (in fact I have played in the 1980's, 1990's and the 2000's! 3 decades!!) and it always amazes me that we have won as many trophy's as we have for it is not always as easy as it seems.

In fact this year the men met with one of our strongest challenges for a few years, battling the French in the final and only winning on games countback! Exciting stuff.

The England Women may as well own their trophy considering the way things have been going in recent years. I don't remember them losing at all!! Once again the venue was excellent. A squash club called 'Pink Power' in Stuttgart (obviously a German thing - no offence intended) hosted the majority of the matches and then the final's setting was a venue just down the road which seated 1200 people around the ASB Glass Court, brand new and looking a million dollars.

The only complaint from the professional men players was that we played on the conventional 19 inch tin. Because of the history of the event and the fact that many of the lower ranked teams are amateurs there has not been a need to lower the tin as has been done for every pro event that happens these days. However, now the strength of the Europe surely justifies the introduction of the lower tin (17 inches) for the Group A and B, who are the 1-8 seed teams. All of the players in these teams are from the full or part-time professional side of the game and would usually be playing competitively on the lower tin. The final justification to me is that the 4 matches the men played in the final lasted a total of 7 hours! That's a lot of squash, even for you squashaholics of the world.

I could say that it's just another European Team Championship and another Gold medal, but it's so much more than that. I was reflecting on the week just gone and the ones over the past 3 decades for me, and I can tell you it doesn't get much better than that! Playing for your country, against the best professionals in your sport, in a team environment, pulling together and living every point that your team mates play as well has to be the pinnacle of anyone's career.

It really doesn't get any better than this!
And the after party's are legendary ...

Happy squashing,
Chris.

www.chris.walker.net     
get some Green Magic

Tit-Bits Day 3 from Squash in Bayern

At the Squash Dome ASB built a court with four glass walls. Normally players don’t like this court and criticise everything: The floor is too slippery or too hard on the joints, the view is not good enough or the whole thing is not even. The players are very satisfied with the court. ASB boss Horst Babinsky is glad to hear that – this time he hired a charming court supervising girl, her name is Jutta – she never played Squash, but what matters? She sits by the side of the court and watches the squash.

Changed roles: The Netherlands team is playing in blue shirts, the German national team is wearing orange shirts. Germans are even wearing orange track-suits. Yet not everybody from the German team is satisfied with the colour but it doesn’t matter as long as they are winning. Only against the Netherlands Germany lost. Netherlands reached the semi finals. But, Germany will play the football world championship in Korea – without orange coloured shirts. For sure!

Pressure on the rackets: For only 10 Euros players can get their rackets redone at the Pacific booth. Almost 20 squash players used the service – amongst them the Germans Edgar Schneider and Oliver Post as well as the Welsh Scott Fitzgerald. Stencils mostly were brought by the players themselves – only the Russians are playing around with different materials using the stencils of Pacific’s Rolf Holzwarth. Rolf hasn’t sold any rackets – but he knows now about the player’s secrets: they are playing with 10 to 16 kilogram.

Dinner without guests: Almost nobody showed up at the catering area on Friday night. The reason was not that the quality of the food went down. The Böblingen major had invited 35 guest out of the organizational committee and the players. They met downtown Böblingen in a historic area for drinks and food. Sometimes some excitement is necessary!

But: between drinks and dinner everybody had to learn some details about medieval history. What happened at May, 12th 1525? For sure it wasn’t a squash European championship – it was a battle during German peasants‘ war in Böblingen. Guided through the museum Chris Stahl and his colleagues saw medieval armouries. Deirbhile O’Byrne was looking very closely ,chained“!

Dress code still is the main theme at the European Championship. The Swiss team – being so near - drove 30 kilometers to Metzingen. This village – only known for the famous men’s tailor „Boss“. Boss‘ factory outlet was the point attracting the Swiss. The Slovakian girls were not driving as far: after the discussion about them not allowed dresses they bought new tricots. These skirts also were a pleasure to all the men around.

Big talents besides the show: Patrick Gässler, 17 years young, is playing squash at the regional team of Stuttgart’s Squash Insel. He is watching especially the German national team players – knowing that he will meet them in the court when the new season starts in October. Than Patrick will play together with the Stuttgart team in the Bundesliga. He is not feeling nervous today – he will play his best squash as always. His big goal: being part of Germany’s national team himself.

ETC Bulletin #2
Tit-bits from Squash in Bayern

The referees are very important for the European Championships: 43 of them plus one championship referee all make sure that everything is going well. Sometimes one needs to not only give the right decisions but also to control things. Today almost everyone of the referees was sitting in front of the court where the Swedish women’s team was playing against Slovakia. The most important question was: „Are the Slovakian girls dressed properly?“ The answer from the complete referee team’s answer: „No!“. But nobody really suffered during the endless discussions. Most of the comments referred mainly – this was said behind the curtains – to the hot dresses!

Records, records: the longest match during this European Championship lasted 90 minutes. Finland’s Juha Raumolin played against Netherland’s Lucas Buit. The shortest match ended after 7 minutes – a women’s match between Spain against Slovakia. The Slovakian player didn’t even have the chance to serve during the 420 seconds inside the court.

On the tennis circuit a lot of people know her name: today Anke Huber was sitting amongst the visitors at the Squash Dome. Anke was one of the most successful German tennis player during the 90‘s, alongside Steffi Graf, and ranked amongst the top 10. The former Tennis Queen openly told us that she only played Squash once in her life. She was very impressed with the athletic movements of the Squash players. Anke herself hasn‘t touched any racket for months and keeps herself fit by running. She was visiting the Dome because she is currently working for the local broadcast station SWR. She plans to be a commentator during the French Open.

Since the World Cup football finals in Cordoba, Argentina in 1978, Germany’s hardest competitor is Austria. Better results since then means the loss has almost been forgotten. But if referees play Squash in the evening - just to relax – everything is turned around. Two Germans weren’t able to win against one Austrian player. Martin Pager was the Austrian hero – the names of the German competitors aren’t really clear: something like P...öbelein and R..arenberg. Thank God, the German national team doesn’t have to play against Austria – it’s Ireland.

In former times, it was hard to know what was happening in Eastern Europe. Today we know that they are even playing Squash. Russia against Bulgaria was one of the East-only ties. The fair end was an equal result, with the slight difference that Russia won one set more! We are looking forward to watching the revenge match!

Everything known: Tina Rath is the Queen of the information desk. She is helping everybody with lots of information. Players, coaches and visitors are asking her. The most asked questions are about free training courts and where the bathrooms are. All other questions are about the times of the shuttle service, score-sheets for the referees and for sure: about results.

Quiet life for the Red Cross: almost nothing to do for the two volunteers of Böblingen’s Red Cross. They are sitting silently amongst the highlife around of them. Only little things happened – everybody could go on to play Squash. Dieter Dannwolf, President of Böblingen’s Red Cross, was sitting there himself for one day. He organized two people to be on duty every day. Dieter himself has played Squash before so he is really happy to be able to have a glance at some of the champions – thanking that there wasn’t too much work for him!