Andy at 1 up first against Ryan, a familiar looking youngster – realizes its Gordon Ashby’s son (and remembers playing Gordon 25 years ago at the old chamber!). Andy takes a close first game, gets outhit in the second, resorts to lobbing everything to win the third, and a close fourth is suddenly finished when at 6 all Ryan obligingly hits 3 in a row into the tin. 1 match to us.
Jacques on next, after 2 close games and a score of 1-1 Jacques gets on top to take the 3rd and races to 8-3 in the fourth……… we called him Sharks in the pub. 1 match each.
Meanwhile “unbeaten” George, our oldest player, on another court has raced into a 0-2 down position (we think he’s trying to preserve his number 3 slot and not get moved up) but class comes through and he comes back strongly to win 3-2. 2 matches to 1 to us.
So all set for a tense final match to decide the fixture……but their number 2 doesn’t turn up (much to Stuart’s relief as he hasn’t actually played for weeks), so we take the 14-6 win and retire first to Wendywood’s pub and then the Baron for a team bonding session (and to find out how old George really is)