A strong contingent for Northern Squash has played an important role in winning a new national tournament.
Here's a full report on how this innovative competition unfolded with club number one Cai Youger leading from the front both on and off the court.
NORTH'S BIG DAY IN TRI-REGIONAL CUP
TEAM North are the newly crowned national one-day squash champions, after clinching the Tri-Regional Cup at Nottingham on the August Bank Holiday weekend.
The 32-strong team - 28 men and 4 women - emerged triumphant after an epic day of squash in the inaugural event at Nottingham Squash club.
The Northern invaders - players from five different counties - took on Team South and Team Central, with 96 players descending on one of the biggest and most prestigious squash clubs in the country.
Three tournament organisers and team captains - Joe Magor (South), Millie Tomlinson (Central) and Cai Younger (North) - who all run best-of three one-day events in different areas of the country - joined forces on the day to create a Super Monrad for the whole country, with every player’s finishing place earning points for the team.
The day proved a massive sold-out success with EIGHT courts in constant use for seven separate graded best of 3-monrad tournaments.
“Our team showed fantastic team spirit,” said Younger, who organises his events under the Matchpoint banner. “Most of us know each other from the Matchpoint tournaments and it was great to see all the Northerners out in force. Everyone was cheering each other on all day long, and it’s great to head up the A1 with that trophy in the bag. We just need to find out where it is now . . . “
Team North was made up of players from Yorkshire, Northumbria, Lancashire, Durham & Cleveland and Cumbria - although two clubs featured prominently with a superb loyal contingent from Old Crossleyans (Halifax) and Northern (Gosforth).
Up to 16 points were up for grabs in each event for the Grade winner, going down to one point for last place - and each player had three or four matches to come through on the day.
When the last match finished at 8:30 in the evening, a jubliant Team North found out they had taken the title by just 13 points from the South.
Younger was the last North player on court, reaching the final of the A Event in the day’s climactic match to collect 14 points - eventually edged out 14-12 in the third game of the final by No 1 seed Luke Bishop.
Northern duo Andrew Shipley (4th) and Alex Robertson (7th) also put in strong performances to collect valuable points in the top graded event.
Their clubmate Chris Thompson hit form to finish third in the B event and provide 12 valuable points.
Yorkshire County player Jessica Dixon provided 16 of her own with a great win in the final of the C event - an event which provided rick pickings as far as Team North were concerned.
The 30-year-old, from Queens Club, Halifax, had to dig deep to take the decider 11-8.
Tony Smith from Old Crossleyans (Halifax) won 14 points for the North with this third-placed finish in the C, while notable performances came from Northern’s Josie Barker (6th), Newbiggin’s Andy Black (7th), Eldon Leisure’s Rajat Kumar (9th), Huddersfield’s George Matthews (10th), Dunnington’s Jordan Williams (12th), Peter Lonsdale (14th) and William Milne of Durham Uni (15th)
Bradford’s Tom Cleminson (Willsden Club) excelled to reach the final of the D Event, while his club-mate Carl Ramsden also reach the semi-finals, losing out to Northern’s Andrew Gibson, who finished third overall.
Other Team North points winners in the D were: Adam Thompson (Huddersfield, 9th) and Adam Coates (Eldon, 12th).
Northern’s Shae Paterson - one of the players of the tournament - put in some superb performances to win the E Event as 5/8 seed, with Concordia’s Ian Morton also chipping in with 14 points after a very strong third-placed finish.
Sedgefield’s Huey Lamb - 12th in the country at U13 level - continued his giantkilling act with an impressive 5th-place finish, while Tegan Younger (Northern) also finished in the top 6.
Sam McParland - one of a strong contingent from Old Crossleyans - chipped in with valuable points at 7th, while Matt Drake (Willsden) took 10th.
Norton’s Evan Taylor was the lone Team North representative in the F Event, and he took 9th spot for eight valuable points.
Kyle Chatterley (Old Crossleyans) was the North’s top player in the G with a strong 5th-placed finish, and he was ably backed up by another Northern stalwart in Peter J Thompson (7th).
Neil Paterson of Northern also finished in the top 10, while more invaluable points came from Concordia junior James Morton (13th), Jim Whiteside 14th, Lancashire), Wilsden junior Ted Ramsden, and Windscale’s Gary Stephenson who was flying the Cumbrian flag for Team North.
TEAM RESULT:
1.? ?Team North 288
2.? ?Team South 275
3.? ?Team Central 261
