Date: Mon 16th March

Venue: O&C Club

Result: Swans 2 – Roehampton 4

Match Manager: Cavin O’Driscoll

With a draw in the first half match away at Roehampton, it was all to play for on the Swans home turf at the O&C, Pall Mall.

From an initial empty Swans team sheet we ended up with eight willing players volunteering to do battle. With an equally eager Roehampton team line up we settled on a six string match. A last minute withdrawal from the Roehampton team meant that, with a bit of shuffling around of the playing order, we ended up with Clarky on The Swans team sheet – he was only supposed to be doing some warm up routines with Milind before his match so thank you Andrew for stepping in.

So first on Oxford Court was Clarky for the Swans versus the elder Lipscomb, Chris, from Roehampton. Chris wasn’t sure if he was in a squash match or a coaching session as Clarky continued his warm up with structured routines in the knock up. Clark began the match with serves to the backhand which were of Kyochesque quality throughout. Unfortunately, that was the only quality aspect of Clark’s game (but in squash one plays as well as one is allowed to). Nevertheless, Clark narrowly won the 1^st. With advice from the gallery Chris dealt increasingly effectively with the half-lengths and wafts across the T on offer. He deservedly took the 2^nd game 10/8. Clark consistently failed to get length on his serve to the forehand only for his opponent to step forward and dispose with repeated volley kills. It was 5 all in the 3^rd before Clark decided to change his serve to forehand. Thankfully, that appeared to make a difference and Clark won 9/5, 9/0. It was a struggle but a good start with a Swans win 3-1.

Next up was Swans Alex Eaton against the younger Roehampton Lipscomb, Harry. It was going to be an aged experience versus athletic whipper snapper player encounter. Alex couldn’t recall the individual scores but confirmed that Harry`s speed and general agility was somewhat disconcerting for a portly elder man. A punishing and thoroughly deserved win for Roehampton to make the match all square.

Meanwhile on the Cambridge court Swans Milind and Roehampton O’Driscoll did battle. Milind already warmed up by Clarky and was hitting the ball in the knock up very sweetly and with a lot of pace. From the off with Milind’s hard hitting made it difficult for O’Driscoll to get in front to the T. Having to play a lot of shots from the back of the court with a few rescue skid boasts O’Driscoll took an early close 1^st game. Milind worked out that tight elevated drives gave him enough time to again control the T and then hit volley drops or hard cross court drives enabling him to take the 2^nd game to make it 1-1. The 3^rd was a hard battle with Milind taking the early lead to 9-7 then O’Driscoll having a few dying back court boasts bringing a 10-10 score line and then a few long rallies to secure a 2-1 lead. O’Driscoll took an early 7-4 led in the 4^th game and Milind fought back to 9-7 but O’Driscoll was able to get the match over the line for a 3-1 win and take Roehampton 2-1 up.

Next on Cambridge was Swans Robert Warner and Roehampton’s Spencer Gordon. They have a history of playing each other in the past in the Bath Cup and friendly matches and always had close battles. Robert having recent form with his England International cap and Spencer making a late season return to games it was going to be a good match of the different styles.

This match was going to be who could out hit, boast and run one another. Robert took an early 1^st game lead with his def low piercing boasts which Spencer was unable to return. In the 2^nd game Spencer started hitting some better length with a few drops which started to work Robert around the court and tie the match score at 1-1. Both played some really good squash in the 3^rd with Spencer nudging 2-1 lead. In the 4^th both players made some uncharacteristic mistakes and with energies waning Spencer was able to haul a 3-1 win to the relief of both players. The score line was now Swans 1 Roehampton 3

Next on Oxford was new Swans recruit Maulik Gupta versus Roe’s Nick St John. Maulik had already hit a few balls with Kynoch so was striking the ball nicely in the warm up. Nick seemed a bit awestruck and unsettled by his Maulik’s hard hitting. In the first couple of games Nick looked perplexed and pained by the relentlessness of Mulik’s hard and accurate game play. With a 2-0 lead Maulik took his foot off the pedal with Nick saying ‘Maulik went a bit easy on me and gave me a few consolatory points in the 3^rd .’ With a 3-0 maiden win Maulik commented ‘It was very good fun, playing with Nick, and being invited to play for the Swans at the O&C.’ This made the match score Swans 2 Roehampton 3 and all down to the last rubber for the Swans to square the overall score.

So the last match on Oxford was the most intriguing of the evening – Swans Duncan Kynoch versus Roehampton’s James Machin both having just returned from a county team weekend – although age groups twenty years apart !
James getting back up to squash speed after injury was in a hurry even in the warm up with hard hitting lengths and early volleys – not what a Vets player wants to see in the warm up ! Boast man Kynoch, as Clarky likes to call him, had other ideas with unrhythmic line and length, cross court drops into the nick followed by his characteristic spinning boast into the front court nick ! It was nip and tuck all the way in this match and it all ended on a cliff hanger.

James took an early 1^st game lead 11-9, Duncan won the 2^nd 11-8, James went 2-1 up with 11-9 in the 3^rd and Duncan squared it up 2-2 with a 11-7 in the 4^th. At which point both players appeared to be accumulating a lot of lead in their legs. Following a few excruciatingly long rallies there were a couple of bent over bodies in the middle of the court with Kynoch gasping for any sort of oxygen just to get the colour back into his cheeks ! Kynoch then hit a few dead nick boasts in the 5^th and picked up some seemingly unretrievable balls following some 20-25 shot rallies to take a 10-7 match ball lead. We were ready to call a draw int the overall match when James found some energy to claw back to 10-10 and with Kynoch wanting to call 1 but James demanding the requisite 2 clear. So it was 12-10 to James in the 5^th and giving Roehampton overall match winners 4-2.

We all retired to the O&C dining room for a delicious supper where the discussion around individual squash performances quickly moved on to the relative performance of our current PM, Starmer, in war time versus other world leaders. With sympathy from some quarters there was fierce debate with the jury still out on the final verdict !

1. Duncan Kynoch    v     James Machin        2-3 9-11 11-8 9-11 11-7 10-12
2. Robert Warner    v    Spencer Gordon       1-3    
3. Milind Chohan    v    Cavin O’Driscoll                 1-3    9-11 11-8 11-13 8-11
4. Alex Eaton        v    Harry Lipscombe       1-3
5. Andrew Clark    v    Chris Lipscombe   3-1   9-6 8-10 9-5 9-0
6. Maulik Gupta    v    Nick St John            3-0  11-3 11-4 11-6