There were celebrations in the North West after Tuesday’s fifth round ties in the National Squash League ...
... when both Manchester-Pontefract and Manchester Northern registered significant victories – Northern their first of the season, and the joint Lancashire/Yorkshire cooperative their fifth successive win as the only undefeated team in the League.
Group A:
Wolverhampton 2-3 Edgbaston Priory
Manchester Northern 5-0 FPD Savills Nottingham
Benz Bavarian Duffield 1-4 Manchester-Pontefract
Group B:
Chichester 3-2 TVS Broxbourne
SWSA Bicester 1-4 Lee-on-Solent
FULL RESULTS FROM ROUND 5
Manchester-Pontefract’s 4-1 win at Benz Bavarian Duffield extends their lead at the top of the Group A table – while the top-of-the-table clash in Group B saw Chichester inflict the first defeat of the season on leaders TVS Broxbourne, but the 3-2 home win only narrowed the Sussex club’s gap behind the former champions from Hertfordshire.
With all teams affected by the Qatar Classic in Doha, the outcomes in the last round of the first half of the season were always going to be difficult to predict. Despite missing their top three players, however, Manchester Northern crushed FPD Savills Nottingham 5-0 at home to claim their first win of the season in style – much to the delight of team manager Masambo Selisho.
Guyana No1 Nicolette Fernandes set the home team in the right direction with a 9-6 9-4 9-0 victory over Nottingham student Alex Norman – both women making their National League debuts. The biggest cheer was reserved for Northern’s Laurens Anjema, the Dutchman in his first outing for the club as top string. Anjema arrived in Manchester from his 21st birthday celebrations in The Hague 24 hours earlier – having mislaid both his rackets and kit! Nearby retailer SportDiscount came to the birthday boy’s rescue – and hours later he beat Nottingham’s former British Open champion David Evans, a first round loser in Qatar, 9-6 4-9 9-4 9-4 in just 37 minutes to give the hosts an unlikely maximum points win over the 1999 champions.
The other Manchester victory took place in Derbyshire, where Duffield claimed the early advantage when full-time fire-fighter Laura Hill beat the visitors’ Lauren Siddall 9-4 9-5 9-2. The tables quickly turned as Manchester-Pontefract turned up the heat on the team more affected by Qatar casualties. The 4-1 victory soon came when team regulars Nick Taylor and Marcus Berrett coasted to straight games wins over the hosts’ Paul Hargrave and Jonathan Kemp, respectively – Mancunian Taylor securing his first win of the season and Yorkshireman Berrett his fifth in a row.
There was also a birthday flavour to the West Midlands home derby in Group A in which Wolverhampton hosted second-placed Edgbaston Priory. The Birmingham club’s Sarah Fitz-Gerald, who turned 35 on Monday, faced Wolverhampton’s British Open Over-45 champion Liz Brown in the opening encounter. Fitz-Gerald, the world champion from Australia who is unbeaten in the League since making her Priory debut three years ago, had to dig deep to earn her 9-7 9-1 10-8 victory over the Wolves veteran. At eight-all in the third game, when refused the stroke she thought she deserved, Brown pleaded with local referee Ellis Shortt: “But, Ellis, I thought you loved me!”
Edgbaston were already assured of victory when Wolverhampton fought back to claim the final two rubbers – Irishman Liam Kenny beating Priory No2 Hadrian Stiff in four games, and top string Mark Cairns, the semi-retired British Open Over-35 champion from Oxfordshire playing a highly-focussed game to defeat a lack-lustre Edgbaston stalwart Del Harris 9-3 9-4 9-6 in just 29 minutes.
Squad No3 Tim Vail was the Chichester hero who ensured Broxbourne’s first defeat this season. After Sussex’s Suzie Pierrepont and Surrey’s Ben Garner had already put the hosts 2-0 up, Vail found himself 1-2 down to the visitors’ Alister Walker in the third string clash. The club coach drew level, then saw the match go into a second tie-break in the decider before he clinched his 9-7 6-9 6-9 9-7 11-9 victory, and Walker’s first defeat of the season.
SWSA Bicester, the team based at the Sue Wright Squash Academy in Oxfordshire, were still unable to register a first win of the season after going down 4-1 at home to Lee-on-Solent. Lauren Briggs gave the hosts an early advantage with a 9-0 9-0 9-2 victory over Lee junior Louise Clark - but the Academy’s winning ways were short-lived. Lee, fourth round victors over Chichester, regrouped as Bradley Ball, Lee Drew, Gavin Jones and Ben Howell all won to consolidate the Hampshire club’s third place position in the group.
FULL RESULTS FROM ROUND 5
