On the weekend of April 25th and 26th, I was lucky enough to be called up to play for my men's county team (Northumbria) in the Senior Inter County Championships.
I have played for our county a few times in the past; however, I usually just scrape it to make it on the team.
Well, at this year's event, I actually played at number 4!
It's a pretty prestigious experience to represent Northumbria with a team of good friends, and the overall standard at the event is pretty unbelievable too, so I thought it'd be a good topic for this article.
I'll talk a bit about the event, the players, our team, our goals, and my personal experience in the two matches I played!
Held at Pontefract Squash & Leisure Club, we all knew that this event was going to be a big spectacle before we'd even got there.
I played at Pontefract many times back when I was a junior; however, I hadn't actually been to the club in about 11/12 years.
Very little had changed in that time, and that's not a bad thing at all. It's a big club with some great open space; however, it's also got that homely, social feel too.
They have a total of 8 squash courts, including 5 glass-backed courts with viewing available on every court (with a tiered seating area outside courts 1 and 2).
I'm pretty sure over 25 teams were participating in this event, including both men's and women's teams in the top league.
As I mentioned in the intro, it was teams of five that were segmented into groups.
Every year, our team has the goal of winning just one match to ensure that we stay up.
You might think that this sounds easy, but when I talk about some of the players at this event later on, you'll understand why our goal isn't to win the event.
Unfortunately, the last time I played for the Northumbria men's county team two years ago, we lost our matches and were relegated.
Last year, I was out with a back injury and was unable to play; however, I clearly wasn't needed as the team won their matches and were promoted back up again!
This year, we had to face Surrey in our first match and Hampshire in our second match.
Both of these matches were set to take place on Saturday; however, if we won one of these matches, we'd go into either a final or playoff match on Sunday, but if we lost them both, we'd be relegated and wouldn't have a match on Sunday (as another team in our group dropped out).
Our women's team were in the same boat as us; however, at first glance, they had certainly had a better chance than us on paper.
The main issue we had was that three of our top players couldn't make it, which is a pretty big blow to the standard of the team.
Our usual number two player is away travelling, our usual number four was busy with work, and our number one sustained an injury just a few weeks before the event.
We have a pretty strong standard in Northumbria, in my opinion, and our team of five often has a lot of depth.
In the past, we usually had three matches, and we'd rotate whoever played at number 5 (meaning I'd usually get one or two matches, rather than playing all three).
This year, we were only able to bring five players without a sub, and we were quite a lot weaker than we would have been if we had a full team.
But, there's no point being negative about it, all we could do was our best!
Anyway, it was awesome to arrive at the club, say hello to our ladies' team and watch them in their first match before preparing for our own first match.
I bumped into a bunch of friends that I hadn't seen for a long time, too, which always makes these events more memorable.
Below is a shot from Matt Godson's Facebook account that does a great job of showcasing just how many people were there to watch.
That's just the crowd for two courts, there were another six courts with just as many people spectating there too!
Not only were people watching the squash, eating, drinking, and socializing, but they also had the recent Grashopper Cup matches streaming from SquashTV on the big screen!
It's not often that you get to watch live pro squash at bars and pubs; however, when you're at a squash club in a squash environment like Pontefract, it just feels like the norm, which was amazing.
Before I delve into my own matches and experience at the event (as well as how our team ended up doing), I wanted to quickly talk about the standard at the event.
Some examples of the players in attendance: Curtis Malik (World No.26), Patrick Rooney (World No.44), Sam Todd (World No.46), Rory Stwart (World No.75), Asia Harris (women's World No.81), Rui Soares (World No.84), Ben Smith (World No.106), and Lwamba Chileshe (World No.112) were all there.
What's even more ridiculous is that, of that list above, five players were on the Yorkshire teams (Sam Todd, Rory Stewart, Ben Smith, and Lwamba Chileshe were all on the men's team and Asia Harris was on the women's team).
I'll cut straight to the ending here, Yorkshire won the tournament's men's and women's events.
However, I don't know the exact scores of each match, and, the fact that the likes of Curtis Malik of Sussex, Patrick Rooney of Merseyside, and Rui Soares (I'm unsure which county Rui was representing) were all there to challenge them.
Needless to say, on top of playing, I got to watch some great matches in person.
It's always sobering to see just how far the levels of the game go.
Speaking of which, I'm unsure if SquashLevels has reached Canada yet; however, this is generally seen as the gold standard for rating players, deciding teams, and deciding draws.
It's basically an algorithm-based way of tracking a player's level based on the scores in their most recent matches.
Let's go through my team as an example.
I'm currently at 10,337 on SquashLevels and played at number 4 on our team.
At number 5, we had Duncan Rutherford, who is at 10,528. Although this is slightly higher than me on SquashLevels, I believe that the county team isn't solely decided based on SquashLevels.
The captain is also able to use some subjectivity based on their knowledge of the team's players. Duncan is just 16 and is improving extremely fast; however, I'm now aged 28 and am a little more experienced than him when it comes to playing senior events like this, plus, I also beat him at the start of the season in a challenge match.
I imagine Duncan will catch up and overtake me soon; however, for now, I'm assuming that this is why he was one spot below me.
Anyway, at number 3, we had our captain (Dave Barnett), who is at 11,918 on SquashLevels. Dave's a local legend in the squash world; despite being in his 40s, he's technically and tactically one of the best players I've seen.
He's been a coach since I was a junior and does a superb job.
At number 2, we had a good friend of mine named Andrew Shipley, who is at 14,675 SquashLevels. It's always a spectacle to watch Andrew.
He plays at a ridiculous pace and uses a lot of deception at the same time. He'll go from cracking low, hard lengths and cross courts, to lifting lobs and flicking cross-court drops, applying ridiculously convincing holds to throw off your timing.
At number 1, we had another good friend of mine named Liam Gutcher, whose SquashLevels is 16,484.
Gutcher is another local legend who is Head Coach (and I believe Head of Racket Sports) at Newcastle University.
Liam is another superb player; he's fit, fast, takes balls early, hits with great accuracy, and isn't afraid to take balls in as soon as the opportunity arises.
Now, that's our team, just to give you an idea of the standard differences at the top end, Curtis Malik's SquashLevel is 48,853.
This means that, on paper, Curtis is almost three times as good as our number one, Liam.
Sam Todd is at 45,412, and Patrick Rooney is at 44,875, too.
To put Yorkshire's standard into clear terms, if we played them, I think that I'd have faced Lwamba Chileshe at number 4, who is at 29,468 on SquashLevels (almost three times as good as me).
I know Lwamba and am sure he'd give me a good hit; however, it would just be a walk in the park for him.
I'm hoping that this doesn't sound like I'm complaining, I'm trying to do the opposite!
It's incredible to see so many superb players on court in real life, and the fact that many of them are currently touring professionals is even more impressive.
It shows that this is a big event in England, and many professional players are keen to attend the Senior Inter County Championships despite the endless travel of pro life.
Below is another shot from Matt Godson's Facebook post from a match between Sam Todd and Curtis Malik.
Now, onto mine and the team's matches.
We were up against Surrey first, starting at 12:30 pm.
I must say that everyone on our team put in a superb shift.
As a team, getting the win wasn't impossible; however, on paper, we were expected to lose 5-0.
Unfortunately, I'll not beat around the bush; this is exactly what happened.
With that said, Dave, Duncan, and Andrew's matches were all 3-2 losses.
I watched Dave's and scored Duncan's. Dave played superbly; he was on top in the majority of rallies. I think he just lost a bit of steam toward the end.
Duncan's was another cracking watch; it was against another junior who (I believe) was named Jansher. I'm unsure whether he was named after the squash legend himself (Jansher Khan) or if this is just a coincidence.
Both Duncan and Jansher both put so much work into each other; if they weren't juniors, there's no way they'd be walking after that match.
Again, Duncan seemed to be on top in many of the rallies, but Jansher was hitting some superb winners and just managed to grab a lead right at the end.
Unfortunately, I didn't see any of Andrew Shipley or Liam's matches. I know Shipley's was extremely close; however, I think Liam's was a little more one-sided as he lost 3-0.
I don't actually have too much to say about my first match as it was over quite quickly.
I was up against a player named Ben Coates and had a decent start. Ben's SquashLevel is 13,502 (while mine is 10,337), so he was expected to win 3-0 or perhaps 3-1.
I managed to take the first game 11-9. Rallies were quite short, and the court was cold. In the first half of that game, I was trying to go length for length against him; however, he was far better at that than me.
In the second half of the first game, I tried to up the pace, force a weak shot, then take volleys in short. This worked at first.
About halfway through the second game, I think Ben was starting to read my game a bit better and was getting to my winners a little more often than I'd hoped.
He was very good at countering and started forcing me to make some harsh movements.
It was at this point that my back injury flared up pretty badly. I think it was around 7-7 in the second game when this happened, and he won that one 11-7.
I was pretty shaken by this, as my back injury only tends to bother me after matches when things stiffen up; however, for something to suddenly go during a game and for the pain to be enough to hamper my movement completely was pretty worrying.
I came off and tried to stretch, but it didn't do me any good.
Dave Barnett came down to give me some tips and check to see if I was okay.
He told me that Andrew had just lost his match, meaning that the team had lost against Surrey overall anyway, and not to push myself if it was going to make my back injury worse.
He rightly pointed out that it was more important for me to be fresh for our second match!
I went back on and lost the third game 11-0 and the fourth game 11-3 (which wasn't the greatest thing for my confidence).
Michael (my opponent) understood that there was something wrong and was nice enough to check if I was alright.
He played really well once he'd figured out my game, and I'm not sure I'd have had much of a chance of winning the match if my back was okay anyway. I also didn't want to take away from his loss by complaining about it, so we shook hands, and that was that!
Next up, we had Hampshire.
It's been a while since I'd played two matches in a day, and, with the back pain playing on my mind, I was pretty nervous for this one.
What made it even worse was that we were due to play this match at either 5 pm or 5:30 pm (I think), and I didn't actually end up going on court until 8 pm!
I knew they were running late, but I didn't expect it to be that long. This made things feel even more mentally taxing.
The only saving grace was that it gave me a lot more time to stretch my back out and try to fix whatever I'd done to it.
Dave and Duncan went on court first, and I was trying to watch both at the same time.
Dave was very unlucky to lose his match 3-0. His opponent was fast, fit, and was getting to all of Dave's shots. I think that Dave's big match against Surrey made things more difficult for him, too.
Duncan, on the other hand, did a superb job of getting the team its first match win of the day!
He went 2-0 up and was looking pretty confident and commanding against his opponent. Although he lost the third, he was clearly on route to victory and took the win 3-1.
I was on court next against a player named Alfie Lawes.
A little side note/fun fact (and probably my coolest claim to fame), Alfie and I were playing on court 1, and this is the very same court on which I managed to take a game off Malaysia's Eain Yow Ng (current World No.17).
I'm not sure how old I was; it was either in the under-17s or under-15s age group, but I'll never forget that match!
Anyway, Andrew Shipley on my team is actually good friends with Alfie, so he gave me some very handy tips before the match started.
Alfie's SquashLevels are around 12,664, so again, I wasn't expected to win this one, but I knew I had a decent chance as the underdog.
Alfie is a big guy, taller than me and stockier too. Andrew told me that he had fast hands, accurate shots, and a lot of deception.
He said that my best bet was to hit solid, hard straight lengths until I had good control of the T, then, when an opportunity came up, to take winners in as early as possible.
He also told me to mix things up with those winners to keep Alfie on his toes.
However, I feel like my mind was still elsewhere in that first game, and Alfie started super sharp. His style stunned me, and I had pretty much no idea where the ball was going at any point.
Even when he was deep in the back corners of the court, he was sending me in the wrong direction again and again.
I lost that first game 11-6.
Andrew told me to work on my straight length and cut out the cross courts completely. I needed to take balls early, too.
This tactic worked well, and I won the second game 11-5.
Alfie came back swinging yet again and made me feel like I was nowhere near the ball at any point in the third game, which he won 11-3.
After some much-needed motivational words from Andrew, I managed to muster up some more energy and take the fourth game 11-8.
However, I think I'd used up all my special powers by this point, and Alfie was ahead of me the whole way through the fifth. He won that one 11-8.
Although I lost, it was a really fun match to play. I think we both enjoyed it a lot, and there were some great shots in there, too.
Plus, the stretching must have worked as I didn't notice my back pain at all during that match.
However, it was a different story after I came off the court.
Unfortunately, I was off just in time to watch the end of Andrew's match, which he lost 3-1 to a very strong opponent. You could tell Andrew was putting everything into it; however, the other player was just a little too strong.
This meant that we had lost that match too, even though Liam had yet to play his.
As a team, we were all pretty gutted; however, I think we were also happy with the fact that everybody had given everything in their matches.
There were no head losses or moments where someone had given up.
There really isn't much more we could have done as a team.
Liam also lost his last match 3-1 against a really strong junior player.
It was now time to drown our sorrows!
We realized that it was Liam's birthday on Sunday, so, as soon as the clock struck midnight on Saturday night, we had a new reason to celebrate!
Team events like these are always great, especially when they're in a small town like Pontefract, where there's only one big late bar/club to go to, because you just know that all the other teams and players are going to be there.
It was even better that we didn't have a match to play on Sunday, meaning that we could have a slight lie-in and head straight home to rest.
As expected, the Senior Inter-County Championship was a superb event.
Nobody was particularly sad on the car journey home. We did what we could with the cards we were dealt; sometimes that's just how it goes.
I'll leave you with the following image of the position in which Andrew Shipley fell asleep just minutes after we got back to our hotel room after the night out on Saturday ...
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