The Mighty Third's back to winning ways.
With Goodfellow and Ticehurst dropped as they didn’t fit with the new ‘youth policy’ being introduced to B.S. Thirds, it was a young looking team that set off for Harpenden on Wednesday night. With an average age of just 22, Johnson, Grilli, Booth Junior, Booth Not So Senior and Newberry chatted excitedly on the long trek West.
Charlie and Ali dominated the conversation with a lot of ‘yoof’ speak, which left the other 3 wondering what they were going on about. Charlie regaled the car with tales of his trip to Wales with the Lane family.....more of that later.
The Boothmobile had been made ready; car seats were in place, wet wipes were to hand, sweets were in abundance and sick bags were readied – it was going to be a jolly jape indeed.
After a whizzo journey, The Thirds turned up bang on time as always only to discover no opponents and no way of getting into the club. Some swift phone calls were made in an attempt to claim the match but this was scuppered by one of the oppo arriving.
Annoyance turned to glee as the chaps saw the club had a ping pong table (or as Boris Johnson – Charlie’s uncle – would say ‘whiff whaff’). The scamps thought this was a jolly hoot and played for an hour until the rest of the oppo arrived.
Up first was Ali. Last time versus Harpenden he lost to his rather portly and hairy opponent. This time around he was clearly inspired by the coaching he received in the car and the ‘getting him to growl like a tiger’ worked as The Cat had no answer to Booth Juniors power. 3-0 to Ali.
Also on first was Richie. There was a 72 year age gap (Booth Senior being the younger if you see what I mean) and Richie used this to his advantage to romp to a 1-0 lead. In the break Tony his opponent seemed to be having some sort of seizure. Richie had never had an opponent have a heart attack between games and along with tripping over Tony’s zimmer frame was clearly unsettled and lost the second. Tony, sweating a strange yellow substance, had clearly shot his bolt in game two and collapsed to a 3-1 defeat to Richie.
Next up was Adam. Never one to do things the easy way, Grillster tried to drive his opponent into submission by cross courting everything. Some swift advice was administered in between games ‘stop cross courting’. This was said after game one, two, three and four. Finally the message got through – Grillster won 3-2. When it was mentioned to Adam that he was simply teeing up his left handed opponent each time he cross courted you could see the penny drop ‘oh he was a left hander, I’ve only just realised’!
Champagne Charlie Johnson was up next against, once again, a tubby opponent. Fresh from his conquest in Wales , CJ put on an exhibition in flash, cocky, annoying, lax, show boating squash. Fortunately, at the age of 11 he’s got plenty of time to mature into a decent player. Also, he is rather good and a bit of ritual opponent humiliation is quite fun to watch. CJ won 3-0.
Last on and with his fitness ever improving was Newbie. At last the message is getting through, when you’re last up your team mates don’t want to see a great exhibition in squash, they want to get down the curry house and have a cheeky shandy. Newbie now seems clear on the use of a squash racket - not to lean on but to hit winners. Newbie ran out 3-1 winner.
5-0 victory, the chaps could return East safe in the knowledge that no losing player would be singled out for unmerciful abuse in the car – so we had to settle on picking on Charlie for 45 minutes.
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