DUFFIELD ON TOP - the Whipp Report

Duffield go back to the top beating Nottingham 5-0 in a match littered with National Champions past and present.

There were more National titles won at the hands of tonight's players than if Jeremy Bates were to marry Geoff Capes and have racket wielding, discus throwing champion offspring (Geoff incidentally has the best website in the world ever, www.geoffcapes.com. Who knew he would turn out to be a famed budgie breeder?! Athlete, Strongman and Prize Winning Budgerigar Breeder!).

The champions were Nick (junior and senior (and British Open let's not forget)), Parky (junior, senior and masters!), Donna Vardy (junior), and I'm assuming Tania, Renan and Rooney Tunes must have notched up a few between them also. So to sum up, our crowd were in for a treat.

TANIA AND JOEL KICK START THE MIDLANDS DERBY

Both players had fairly straight forward matches but Donna Vardy (fresh from winning her Over 35 national title, and very fresh as she's had over 10 years away without picking up a racket after retiring at her peak when she won her junior national title, akin to Stacey Ross) took a 4-0 lead in the first with some awesome forehand kills. After the great start it was pretty one sided and Tania raced through at a super speedy pace. Joel was just too good unfortunately for Lewis and also won 3-0. Joel's great to watch cus he's always willing to go for some outrageous shots when he gets a rush of blood, sometimes they come off and sometimes he can turn what's meant to be a crazy backhand cross-court nick into a good cross-court winning length!

PARKMAN RUNS AND RUNS... AND RUNS (OBVIOUSLY)

This was always going to be a fun match with my attacking and Parky's dogged determination. Parky, feeling great after his weekend win, was well up for this match and I was playing well so there were some great rallies had. Unfortunately for the Master champion the pace was just a little too high throughout and coupled with few errors I managed to run away to a 2-0 lead. Wary about the Yorkshire man's comeback skills I was determined to make a good start and Nick told me not to be too bonkers on the pace as Simon's like a "Sponge" as he just absorbs anything one paced thrown at him. Again hitting no errors and playing reasonably sensibly (for me) I raced to a 9-1 lead and the match was all but over. A few good shots from the Parkatron couldn't prevent the inevitable for too long and Duffield had won the match. The crowd were now becoming increasingly excitable after a great match to watch (and play in).

JOEY AND NICK CALMLY REEL IN THE ALREADY WOUNDED NOTTINGHAM

The last two matches saw Duffield's 1 and 2 finish the job off to complete a 5-0 drubbing of our rivals. They both dropped a game to make things interesting, or maybe just teasing the Nottingham supporters. It was as if they'd seen a fox left for dead in the road and kicked it in the head to complete the road kill and put the poor thing out of its misery.

A good night for Duffield after the disappointment of our last outing at Ponte, with some great squash enjoyed by the fully packed coliseum. Bring on the next round. Grrrrrr

Andy Whipp
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