Congratulations to all 7 of our junior squash players who represented the West in the annual inter regional tournament against squads from East, Central, Highlands & Tayside & Fife.

Orla McDougall played in the U11 squad which finished 2nd, her brother Findaly played in the U13 squad who also finished 2nd. Jack Smillie played 3 matches for the U17 squad and again a 2nd place was his reward.  The U15 squad was a Strathgryffe team in all but name as Calum Carswell, John Meehan, Ruadhri McDougall and Beth Moglia made up the team and won all their matches to finish in first place. A great achievment for the team and also for their coach Martin Woods, also from Strathgryffe.

The winning under 15 team of Strathgryffe players.

Many congratulations to our new Club Champion Scott Adams.

There was a change to the format of this years club championship with all matches being played over 1 weekend with all competitors playing 4 matches over the 2 days.

The competition started on Saturday with a number of close matches but no real surprises in terms of results though James Dare and David Archibald did play an epic 5 set match which lasted almost 45 minutes with James being the eventual winner 11-8 in the final game. .

Sunday saw one or two competitors withdrawing due to injuries suffered on the Saturday but nevertheless the quality of squash was still extremely high. The first shock of the tournament was Scott defeating James 3-2 having come back from losing the first 2 games. Ross Lawrie made his way to the final by defeating Jack Smillie on Saturday and then he enjoyed a bye in the semi final as his opponent suffered an injury during his Saturday matches.

The first final played was the plate competition which was won for the first time by Colin Stewart who defeated Andrew Stark 3-1 and was very proud to become the first plate winner to also hold a bus pass !!

The Open final was a very close affair with Ross taking a 2 nil lead before Scott fought his way back into the match winning the next 2 games 12-10. The final game was also a close run thing with Scott just getting over the line by 11-9. 

All competitors felt that the new format worked very well with a great atmosphere generated by having many players and spectators around for the whole weekend.

The various age group competitions are to be held with a similar format over the weekend of May 14th & 15th.

 

The club had 2 representatives in the Scotland squad for the recent 5 nations under 15 competition.

 

Congratulations to Calum Carswell and John Meehan were selected to represent Scotland at the recent 5 nations tournament held in Lilleshall.

Calum won his game against the Wales,  but then lost 2 very closely fought matches against France & Ireland.  John made his debut against the eventual winners, England, and performed very well despite losing 3-0. Both boys played a full part in the team finishing in 3rd place overall and can be rightly proud of representing their country. 

Its now all over with the final round of matches played.

The story of the season continued right to the very end with 2 teams winning and two teams on the losing side.  The 1st team finished of the season with a 3-2 (14-9) victory away at Western 2 but unfortunately this was not enough to stave of relegation as they finished in 10th place, just 4 points from safety.

The disappointment of the 1st team relegation is however countered by the promotion of the 2nd team who won their final match 3-2 (13-8) to finish 27 points clear at the top of the league. This means that we will have teams in the top two divisions again next season. The 3rd team finished of their season with a disappointing 5-0 (18-2) loss at home to a very strong Western 4. The 3rds finished 6th in a season of "might have beens". Finally tithe 4th team played away at local rivals and runaway league leaders Linwood and lost 4-1 (17-5)  to finish in 7th place.

Whilst there have ben some disappointments over the season the future does look bright with a number of our juniors proving themselves capable of playing team squash at high levels the future looks very promising.

Heres to next season !