Bears Toothless against Holmer Green 2

Bears Whimper against Holmer Green 2

Match Report: Dave 'Captain Kangaroo' Fielding

Not the best of nights for us. Captain Olly had to pull out at the last minute as he went on a Loyalty Building course at Wembley Stadium (along with 46,000 others, including some Swedes apparently) which left us a bit thin. Not good when HG put out a decent 5.

Toby started off like a train against young Ben Sheldon, winning the first game 9-1. Admittedly, Ben spent most of that game finding out exactly where the top of the tin was, and once he'd located it and aimed a bit higher, he took Toby to task. 6/9, 6/9, 5/9 was, by his own admission, a bit flattering to the Big Guy. Ben is a quality player (1-3)

Andrew Egan stepped in to cover for AWOLiver, but it wasn't a happy evening for the pseudo-Taffy. He's struggling a bit at the moment with a heavy work commitment and a back which has all the flexibility of Margaret Thatcher in her prime. Came up against another quality player in Ross Baker and came away with only a handful of points. Give this man a sabbatical. (0-3)

I went in at 3 against Mark Mellar for what was one of the more curious games of the evening. For the first game I was nothing short of a squash god, imperiously controlling the rallies and despatching the winners with utter aplomb. I barely broke sweat, walked off thinking I was too good to lose and promptly lost the next three games, the last one an abject 0-9. Mark is extremely fit and chases everything down, but how I went from Colossus to Chump in one game still has me scratching my head (1-3)

Jo Lady Bear did something similar, though not as bad, in her game. Won a hard-fought first 9-7 against Darren Thompson but then couldn't keep up the momentum. Those infamous chop drops from the back just weren't coming off. Hangover from the Inter-Counties, perhaps? (1-3)

By far the most entertaining match came at 5 between our super stand-in Mike Atkinson and Paul "The Comet" Haley, ex of these pastures. Apparently, he moved up to Holmer Green because he "couldn't stand any more of Jones' bulls**t any more." Or something like that. The squash equivalent of Wacky Races, this match was an absolute nightmare to mark because neither player appeared to have a clue as to how to move on a squash court and kept confusing an open space with each other. Atko took the first with some impressive depth and volleying, but then The Comet blazed back (do you see what I did there? I"m available for freelance articles). Atko retaliated, but then his mistake count started to rise as the lack of match practice kicked in. The resistance flared briefly to make it 2-1, but then fizzled out (that's enough appalling firework metaphors. ed). Well played to Mike anyway, and thanks for standing in and getting us a couple of valuable points.

 

So, a 5-0, 19/5 drubbing made for a downbeat curry. 

With some tough matches coming up, we need to sharpen up and our captain to realign his priorities...

(The Real) Captain Bear