Men’s Over 60 Inter County Championship 2017/18 Stage 2
Now that we have two O60 teams that means we have two captains…
O60 First Team do enough in their Premier Relegation Group:
Playing in the Premier relegation group staged at Alderley Edge CC on 24th March, the Northumbria Men’s O60 first team first beat Buckinghamshire and then lost to Cheshire to finish second.
The Northumbria team consisted of current County O60 Champion Ron Freeman (Ashington), and his two recent victims on the way to retaining his County title, John Thompson and Colin McNestrie (both Tynemouth).
After Cheshire had opened proceedings with a comfortable 3-0 (12-0) win over Buckinghamshire, Northumbria also defeated Buckinghamshire 3-0 (12-2), Colin at 3 opening with a 3-2 win over Trevor Howes, Ron at 1 comfortably dispatching Peter Smith 3-0 and John at 2 rounding things off with a 3-0 victory over Aubrey Waddy.
Since our win over them in the first half, Cheshire had brought in two new players at 1 and 2, and this proved decisive. Colin played well against old adversary Geoff Walton but eventually lost out 3-2 in a tight match. After narrowly losing his opening game against Phil Osborne, Ron took the second with ease, but then lost his way going down 3-1. In the final match John went 2-1 up against Roger Moss before eventually succumbing 3-2, for an overall match score of 3-0 (12-5) to Cheshire.
1. Cheshire 24
2. Northumbria I 17
3. Buckinghamshire 2
It’s all change next season with the proposed move to a knockout format, so the objective will be to try to stay in the main competition during the first stage, and strengthen the squad with the addition of Jon Evans for the final stage.
John Thompson
O60 Second Team in their Promotion Group:
Counties involved were:
Lancashire 2 ( Host)
South East Wales
Warwickshire
Northumbria 2
The Venue was Fairways Lodge in Manchester and our team was Alan Coates, Graham Madge and Gary Clark.
Colin McNestrie had to move up to our 1st team as they were short of players & Mike Cherryman having to pull out with an elbow injury.
Our 1st game was against South East Wales.
Gary was 1st up. Quickly getting into a 2-1 lead, but his opponent pipping him 3-2 eventually loosing the 5th 16-14.
Alan was next up winning the 1st game but his tricky opponent soon closed the match out 3-1.
Graham making his County debut finding the going tough lost his game 3-0.
2nd game was against Warwickshire.
Gary again had a long game going all the way to 5 but loosing out easily in the 5th.
Alan was up against a fresh no 1 but was soon 2-0 up & having a match ball in the 4th before been pegged back & loosing tight game 3-2.
Graham again playing for his first win came up against a very tricky opponent losing a tight game 3-0.
Final game on Sunday morning was against Lancashire 2.
Gary feeling under the weather with a touch of food poisoning soon lost 3-0 & glad to be finished his games.
Alan had a bad start soon 2-0 down, won the 3rd but couldn’t keep it going in the 4th. Loosing 3-1.
Graham not having the best of luck pulled a muscle in his leg early in his game. Going down 3-0.
Alan Coates 1-3 Paul Mills 15/11 13/15 7/15 9/15
Graham Madge 0-3 Alan James 9/15 5/15 8/15
Gary Clark 2-3 Richard Ford 13/15 15/9 18/16 10/15 14/16
Alan Coates 2-3 Paul Chapman 15/7 15/13 7/15 15/17 11/15
Graham Madge 0-3 Lou Van Talligan 9/15 11/15 13/15
Gary Clark 2-3 Steve Ewer 9/15 15/13 12/15 15/11 3/15
Alan Coates 1-3 Dougie Smith 1/15 10/15 15/13 10/15
Graham Madge 0-3 Neil Ronda 9/15 4/15 4/15
Gary Clark 0-3 Geoff Wilcox 8/15 10/15 3/15
1. Lancashire 2 35
2. South East Wales 28
3. Warwickshire19
4. Northumbria II 8
Thanks everyone for a great squash weekend
Alan Coates (Northumbria Captain)
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