Date: Mon 29th September

Venue: Oxford & Cambridge Club

Result: Swans 4 – Wine Trade 0

Match Manager: Callum Morris (Andrew Clark)

Dear Will, Adam and Gary,

Well, it was certainly worth the organizational effort and thanks to Nick for his contribution to that also. We all really appreciated your efforts to educate us and what may have been missing in some squash excellence was clearly made up for in knowledge of wine.

Strings 3 and 4 went to the Swans with relative ease (I have a plan to address this for the return fixture). Simpson (3/0) was always likely to be too quick for the talented Kynoch but the latter did not help himself by playing a tournament at Hurlingham the day before. It would be nice to see Simpson applying some of the advice given re change of pace and delay but perhaps that is too much to wish for at this stage. Match of the night was Grey vs Morris. 10/9 to Morris in the first…what a surprise! As usual it was full frontal physical assault from Morris. No ball was to be left un-returned. Grey volleyed and rallied well with his enormous reach extending many rallies. However, at times, it looked like Grey may have preferred just to lie down or fall over rather than continue the battle. Great credit it to him to last as well as he did. In fairness to Morris, besides relentless retrieval he played some remarkably tight lengths and judicial drops at times intentionally or not. I don’t know the game score in the end but from what I saw it was a great match to watch.

I am very pleased that Adrian Macmillan (an elder Swan) was able to join us. My suggestion for the return fixture is that the Wine Trade keep Lennox and Owen in their side. The Swans have Robin Moore and Charlie Lindsell (already wishing to attend); they should be ok 4 and 5 strings. Charlie is in his 70s and would prefer to play a back half of court game if acceptable? Robin has just recovered from a heart operation!

Looking forward to January.

Best regards,

Andrew