A large entry (122) for the 43rd Masters Regional at the Midlands Coventry and North Warwickshire. Unfortunately, five players and a couple of England possibles, had to drop out due to illness.

The WO55 saw Lynn Davies of Wales O35, 40, 45, 50 and 55 fame, claim another title with Jan Ellis second, Jane Law third and Jane Hill fourth.

In the WO45/50 combined, the re-emergence of a slightly wounded Fran Wallis (she is awaiting a knee operation) saw her still too good for the rest of the field. Lesley Sturgess took her very close to 9/7 in the fifth, but Helen Gould was unable to get into the match in the Final, 4, 5 and 7. Earlier Sturgess had beaten Pippa Green 3-1.

The WO35/40 saw Isabelle Tweedle overcome Jill Chilvers 9/4 in the fifth, in a lengthy battle on the ultra hot no 6 court, and then overcome Katie Lawrence 3-1. Sarah Parr overturned Alison Goy 3-1 but Tweedle gained revenge for an earlier encounter and won the title 9/4 9/7 9/4.

The Mens 70/75 saw William Wilson overcome Vinnie Taylor 9/5 in the fourth after the latter had had a titanic battle against a quick starting Nigel Belle 4/9 7/9 9/4 9/2 9/4. Brian Hardcastle was in similar form in the bottom half and the Final saw Wilson win 9/1 9/6 9/3.

Mens O65 saw some high drama as a totally bizarre incident in a tight 8*/9 second game saw Martin Pearse’s left fibula meet Chris Ansell’s right knee, end of and a visit to A&E for the Chairman. Luckily the Xray showed only a faint hairline fracture, whilst Rod Boswell, winning fairly easily 2/1 and 6/1 over Geoff Howes, tore a calf muscle. These were both on court 6 (which later claimed a third victim in Peter Alexander – torn Hamstring!) So, unexpectedly, the Semi Final was Howes and Ansell and was in effect a possible England Cap decider. The former won 9/0 10/8 5/9 9/4 with Ansell throwing away the second game having led 8/5.

Aubrey Waddy was getting a fair pasting from Barry Featherstone but Waddy did enough to get into Barry’s head and it was unexpectedly equal with 10/9 and 10/8. From then on Aubrey mentally held the whip hand to the horror of a dejected Featherstone. The Final was unusually one way traffic as Howes wasn’t nearly lively enough on the day and Waddy secured the title 1 and 1 and 1.

The Mens O60 has suddenly become strong and the possible National Team looks an awful lot different than it did with the emergence of Dave Manning and Nick Drysdale, Manning however, looked as totally knackered as it is possible to be in the third game of his Semi with Ian Holmes and the latter, a veritable machine, won 4/9 9/7 8/10 9/1 9/3. Earlier, Holmes had beaten John Goodrich. Drysdale, a quality performer for decades, confines himself to coaching in Bristol but has reappeared in the quest for a Cap and did himself no harm at all, beating Phil Godfrey 3-2 and Neil Nightingale 3-1. The latter had scraped the tough John Hithersay who, if he played more tournaments would certainly trouble the top players. Ronnie Bell-rare to see him lose- found Drysdale too contained, losing 2-3 and Holmes went in similar fashion for the elegant right hander to record his first title 3/9 9/5 9/7 9/3.

The Mens O55 saw Alexander making a rare appearance and the gallery were treated to some serious stretches as he beat Paul Harris and a patently unwell Colin Shields, who would have stayed in bed had he not been chasing the sixth place in the England Team. However, he damaged his hamstring and Steve Johnson, who had beaten Rip Oyler and Stuart Hardy (victor over former National 55 Champion Geoff Redfern) met him in the Final. Alexander led 9/3 8/6 but then conceded.

An amazing sideline here – imagine you are a nighty clad Mrs Johnson and you are awoken by banging at the front door at 6.30am..

6-30 am is normally associated by an early morning visit from Plod...

Standing there is a grinning Glen Ragou

“I’ve come to pick up Stevo”.

“What?”

“We are going shopping in Manchester today for our daughter’s wedding.”

“No, we are playing squash in Coventry”.

Johnno, asleep upstairs, is awoken.

“I thought it was next weekend. It’s always the weekend before the Closed”.

Luckily, Marlene saw the funny side having Glen take her husband away for a clean living tea total weekend.....

Amusing sideline 2: It was obvious to all that the chief facilitator of Ugandan Squash, ‘’Swagger ‘’Hardy, was conditioning himself to win the prestigious Jesters British Amateur Championship at the RAC held on the Sunday and Monday! He won easily on Sunday and is favourite to win the final. Stuart coached the Ugandan team on a visit to see Clark Mc Adam, of the Foreign Office in Kampala and now is held responsible for all their successes..... Hence the nickname they have adopted...play squash with swagger..!!

The Mens O50 was missing a lot of the top players, so Adrian Jaski had an easy stroll through, beating Grant Miller 9/32 9/3 9/2 and Gary Raw 9/2 9/0 9/5 in the Final – Miller having taken out Steve Barlow 9/0 9/4 9/1.

Mens O45 – a tight knit group with not much between all 8 Quarter Finalists. Andrew Eilfield shaded a jaded Peter Lonsdale, not himself, 3-2 but then fell to David Youngs. The latter met Duane Harrison in the Final who resisted everything Youngs threw at him and Harrison recorded the title 10/9 4/9 9/5 0/9 9/6. Earlier on Harrison had beaten Steve Dodridge 3-0 and Peter Gunter 3-1.

Mens O40 – Jon Glidden was also a retiree with injury and Stuart Summers narrow defeat against Glen Ragou provided the gallery with one of the longest and best rallies they had ever seen. Certainly I haven’t heard applause like it for a very long time at its conclusion, the match winning rally with Ragou picking up every single ball, back to front, for at least 80 shots. His nick name, Black Flash, is well earned. In the bottom half, Nick Lavery would be very pleased with his 11/8 5/11 2/11 11/8 and 13/11 win over John Hanson and then his 8/11 11/9 4/11 11/13 victory over Matt Stephenson. The Final went the whole way as well, but Ragou’s abstinence the night before in front of the Chairman and Vice Chairman (he said it was lemonade) proved decisive 7/11 11/5 11/5 6/11 11/3. The Ragou bedroom now houses quite a bit of glassware!

The Mens O35 saw Frank Ellis dropping down two age groups and his route took out Jon Hunter and Tim Burrell, the latter in a fast paced thriller. Jamie Goodrich progressed to the Final at the expense of Jago Nardilli who fell out with the Referee . I am told the Final was nip and tuck 7/11 17/15 11/9 11/2, before Goodrich (41 himself) beat Ellis (45+) in the 35 Final! Amazing fitness, speed and conditioning from both players.

Finally thanks to Brian Brock and Mo Sarwar’s impeccable organisation and to Coventry and North Warwickshire for providing hospitality and food and drink for our assembled gathering.