Match Report: Bears on an artificial 'high'?: Bears v Chesham Bois Old Boys

It's amazing how quickly match reports come in when a team has won. 

Could it just be a temporary high?

Here's Jo's breathless report:

The Bears set off for last night’s match quietly confident in the knowledge that several of the more ‘experienced’ Old Boys were up in Manchester at the British Masters playing proper old man squash.  So confident, that when Toby and I arrived at Chesham the rest of the team were nowhere to be seen.  Never one to miss the opportunity to get to the bar early, I nipped on court to get things underway. 

So – Lady Bear against a man who was wearing so many support bandages and different types of strapping on his lower limbs that it was impossible to discern whether or not he actually had any legs.  This should have been a clue.  However, me being me, it wasn’t, and I quickly found myself 5-0 down in the first.  Definitely not part of my plan.  After some running and scrabbling, I clawed my way to a 6-9 loss in the first.  Must do better.  And in the 2^nd I did.  Drop shots galore led to a fairly comfortable second game.  Great stuff.  However, I then resorted to my default setting which is running and rallying into the backhand corner.  I’m not entirely sure why.  And it ended up with a 2-9 drubbing.  Oh dear.  So onto the fourth and at 0-3 down I suddenly realise that Olly has not developed a severe nervous tick with associated gesticulation in the balcony, but is in fact urging me (and indeed the whole club, including my opponent) to go short.  It was at this point that I realised that Mr No Legs did indeed have a severe lack of ability in the going forwards department, and after 2 games of drop shots, I managed to wrap up the win 3-2.  Who wants to win easy?!!!!

Whilst my see-saw battle was going on, Toby had managed to go 2 nil up quite comfortably against an opponent who paid little attention to the concept of clearing the ball.  Good work we thought – in the bag.  However Toby had other ideas and proceeded to start what can only be technically described as ‘d1cking about’.  In fact he ‘d1cked about’ so much that he lost the 3^rd.  Oh dear.  However ‘Magic’ obviously gave himself a strict talking to between games and proceeded to win the 4^th quite easily.  When asked post-match what had caused said ‘d1cking about’ Toby replied that he’d wanted to win the 3^rd 9-0, and once his opponent had won a point had got a bit confused.  I might advise that this strategy backfired a little, and should be abandoned in future matches!

So onto Captain Fielding, who was up against the ever present wily ‘’old boy’ himself Mick O’Sullivan.  It was definitely a cause of little and large on court.  Dave seemed comfortably in control and had game ball at 8-6, only to eventually win it 10-9, which caused some minor consternation.  However, he gave himself a kick up the backside and, in his own words, ‘made himself as wide at the humber bridge’ and dispatched Mick 3-0 to put the Bears 3-0 up and the match was in the bag.  Good work!

So no pressure on Captain Olly then, from who we were expecting great things after his victory last week and sudden discovery that running does in fact make winning a little easier (see below).  However, in the first we were to be disappointed.  Olly, clearly bamboozled by a player who seemed to be able to hit tin skimming boasts from almost anywhere in the court, was back to his old self, and demonstrated a severe case of ‘can’t be ar$ed’.  0-1 down.  However, in the 2^nd, he came back a new man, and remembered that running helped.  He flew around the court like a man possessed, picking up everything and anything, and was rewarded.  This tactic continued in the 3^rd and 4^th and he came out a 3-1 victor.  

So finally it was down to Young Seb Monson, making his debut for the bears (Virgin Bear??).  After his opponent finally turned up at 9.25 after finishing at night school, Seb was raring to go.  He had spent the last 2 hours warming up after all.  His opponent clearly hadn’t and obviously wished he was still back in the classroom.  Seb stunned him with an imperious, if somewhat lackadaisical, demonstration of that classic racket by the ankles school of squash, and roared to a 3-0 victory in around 15 minutes.  Great debut performance.

So the Bears picked up a 5-0 win, with lots of lovely and much needed points.  All that was left was to try and give Captain Fielding a musical education in the car on the way home, although he proved that he is indeed living up to his new ‘old man’ nickname.