07/10/2005
The Away Supporter (singular)
Guildford's Barry Hitchcock presents a personal view of the visit to Chichester ...

Chichester against UniSport Guildford,
4th October 2005

A Personal View from Barry Hitchcock

The squash aficionados have delivered their verdicts on the technical aspects that made up this Premier League Match. My view will be less well informed on the squash but more concerned with the views of the travelling supporter (singular, you will note!).

A trip to Chichester

Chichester has always been a well-run club. The white bits always look white and the floors seem lovingly sanded. The welcome is always warm and the on-court battles fierce. But there were some significant differences this year. Gone is Peter Genever Senior from the club management team – although we were pleased to see him there supporting his son.

There was no obvious sign of that other Peter – of the Crabtree variety. Concerned that his one-sided  acerbic view of what unfolded on the court in front of him was missing from our pages, I was even more disturbed not to see his trimly mellowing figure gracing the evening.

For those of you who have not visited Chichester recently, you need to carefully prepare for the start. Get a drink in early, get a comfortable seat and put you feet up before the show starts. The introductions take longer than the time it takes to find a London cab when the England football team are playing. When some of the finer points were explained to me it was quite amusing, but no place for an outsider. The announcer sounds like a much younger Stanley Unwin on speed. (I am just taking a wild guess at the average age of the readers of these pages) .

A Close Match

When the squash started there was the usual familiarity of the same officials who have been stalwarts of the 7 years I have been going to Chi. What is the game doing about encouraging younger people to take up this particular evening occupation? We need to think about how to do that, or what will take the place of a Referee and Marker ‘cos it will not be long before it is completely unreasonable to expect many of these people to continue. Why should they? It must be more attractive trying to bring civilisation to Friday night lager-louts than to offer yourself to some of these matches!

The match had gone pretty well to plan for both sides. Alison Waters established her credentials as one of our rising stars and produced a tidy result over Suzie Pierrepont. Tom Richards had inflicted another defeat on Neil Frankland, having beaten him in the Surrey Closed 3 days earlier, albeit with greater emphasis this time. Jesse Engelbrecht had spoiled the Chi party by giving Tim Vail little opportunity for his famous nick-rollers and the Genever/Meads battle followed the established pattern they have played out many times in their distinguished careers. Neither gives in; both give their all; both know each other’s game with their eyes closed. On this occasion it was Pete who came out on top – perhaps ‘till next time.

A fabulous finish

What seemed to really get the gallery going was the Stacey Ross/Ben Garner match. It was not just the travelling supporter who appreciated the squash. It was a fabulous encounter. Ben was fast, furious, energetic and determined. Stacey was an amazing mixture. Sometimes he was lazily coasting with a tantalizing cocktail of control, precision and power. At other times he was lightning fast round the court. Ben dug deeper, hit harder, ran more. During the quiet moments, the sound of his feet drumming the boards was almost distracting. Stacey was darting and floating and - everywhere.  It was Yin versus Yang, David against Goliath, the rapier against the sledgehammer. Ben lost it with the Referee in a way that reminded me of Ricky Ponting frustratedly complaining that 12th man Gary Pratt was too good a fielder in the recent Ashes series. Ben was struggling with the idea that he could not read what Stacey was doing and when he could read it he could not get to it and when he could get to it he couldn’t get the pressure off himself anyway.

Alas it all finished too soon – the complete opposite of the player introductions.

Barry Hitchcock
Director of Sport, University of Surrey

 Contributor: Barry Hitchcock
Club: Guildford

The Away Supporter (singular)
Guildford's Barry Hitchcock presents a personal view of the visit to Chichester ...

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