Ben Mann does the Double-Double – Winning Fourth Championship

This week saw the final reckoning of our Racketball Championships and Plate competition. We began in late May with a record entry of 32 players in our usual knockout format, with a Plate Tournament for the first round losers. We played three of the semi-finals back-to-back on Monday and this drew supporters to watch on the night.

Paul Rider took on Tom Parker in one Plate semi-final, both players hoping to reach their first final. Paul is renowned for chasing every ball and this paid off as he won through to the final by 3 games to 1, with the games scores being 11-6 / 10-12 / 11-8 / 11-8.The other Plate semi-final had been played a couple of days earlier, when Ryan Pescod beat Simon Marshall by 3 games to 0.

The first Championship semi-final between Mike Sturgeon and defending champion Ben Mann proved to be the best match of the whole tournament. They had never played against each before but it quickly became clear what a tight match this would be. The first two games were neck and neck, with Ben narrowly winning both, but then Mike turned the tables as he stormed through the 3^rd and 4^th games … now it was 2 games all, going in to the decider. It was a key moment as the pendulum suddenly swung back to Ben as he built a big lead and closed out the match 12-10 / 12-10 / 6-11 / 5-11 / 11-3.

In the second Championship semi-final twice champion Matt Towers came up against Sam Morris (last year’s runner up). These two players have a finely balanced head-to-head record and so the outcome was tough to predict, but on this occasion Matt had the edge with a composed performance, winning 13-11 / 11-5 / 11-9. Sam had his chances though with a game point in the first game and reached 9-all in a very tight 3^rd game.

The finals took place last night, three days after the semi-finals.

The Plate final was played first, between Paul and Ryan, who seems to getting back to form after his long injury lay-off. Once again Paul put up strong resistance but Ryan took the spoils by 3 games to 1: 11-7 / 11-9 / 11-13 / 11-7.

And so to the main Championships final – between defending champion Ben and twice previous champion Matt. In the first game Ben steadily edged ahead but Matt dug in to get within a point of Ben at 7-8 down, but Ben chalked up the next 3 points to take the first game. Matt hit back with a flourish towards the end of the 2^nd game to level the match at 1 game all. Ben pushed on as the rallies lengthened in the second half of the match, both men covering the court to all four corners. These long rallies suited Ben as he slowly sapped Matt’s energy and forced him back on the court, but from 9-4 down in the 4^th game, Matt rallied with 4 more points and saved two match points. Finally Matt succumbed to lose the match by 3 games to 1. Ben had retained his championship, winning 11-7 / 9-11 / 11-3 / 11-8, after 36 minutes.

Ben is now a “double – double champion”, having won the squash and the racketball championships in 2025 and 2026. A fantastic achievement!  

Congratulations to our winners – Ben and Ryan – and well done to the runners-up and all participants this year.

Our next Club Racketball events are the Handicap tournament in September through to November, and the 2026 Doubles tournament on 5^th November. This year we have the added bonus of the inaugural Beds County Closed Racketball championships in mid-September. Details of how to enter will follow from the Beds SRA (Squash & Racketball Association) in the near future.

Don’t forget our weekly Club Nights every Thursday (5.45 to 7.15pm). If you have not played before and would like to give it a try please ask at Reception to book a taster or by emailing [email protected]