Staff Squash Tournament Inspires Many New Players

You may have noticed that more of the Club Towers staff team have been playing squash over the last few months. This is down to our super passionate coach Ed Norris setting up and delivering a squash staff tournament which started back in September. Ed encouraged everyone to join in, from complete beginners through to our more seasoned pros, which resulted in a fantastic twenty-four entrants.

Of those twenty-four an astounding seventeen were either squash novices or complete beginners, with some taking their first squash introduction just prior to taking part in the competition. Given the relatively steep learning curve for playing squash, this is a remarkable achievement.  To level the playing field with our more experienced players there was a handicapping system in place including some wrong-handed play! After several weeks of matches and some giant killing (including knocking out our Club Champion Steve Davies and experienced team players Matt Towers and Steve Adams) we were down to our finals on Friday 8^th December.

We started with the plate competition final, which was between Theresa Wright and Iain Daines. This was a very closely contested match in which the handicaps were similar. In each game Iain took an early lead, but Theresa managed to come strong at the end and emerged triumphant with a 3-1 win.

The main final was between Amy Bentham and Sam Berrill, with Sam starting each game with a deficit of -5 to +8 playing to 11. In the first game, Sam won a string of early points and managed to overhaul Amy with some ease. But in the following games Amy relaxed and started to find her form.  Sam found the pressure was on him not to make a mistake once Amy had won one or two points. A great battle saw Amy secure a 3-1 victory.

Congratulations to our first-time winners (who are rightly very proud of their trophies!) and to all who took part in the tournament over the last few months. We will make this an annual event and hope to get even more staff involved next time. Sam has already progressed onto the box leagues and we will watch his progress with interest – he is quick!

We must thank Ed for being the driving force for this.  To get so many staff members competing, with most of them trying squash for the first time, was a result we did not expect but which has been inspiring to see and it’s so fantastic to hear that many of them now claim to be ‘hooked’ and have adopted squash as their new sport.  Ed was presented with some gifts before the start of the finals to show everyone’s appreciation.

If you would like to give the sport a try, rackets members can have a free, hour-long introduction to squash with Ed; non rackets members who want to try it out before upgrading can have a free half hour taster session.  Both can be booked at Reception.