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Herts Mens County Team
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Herts Mens County Team
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The Senior Inter-County Championships were held in Manchester at the beginning of May. The Herts team made the tedious journey up north, fighting their way through the Bank holiday weekend traffic with a view to successfully defending their title. No changes were made to the team which beat Sussex 3-2 in a nail biting final last year. The team order was as follows: 1. Chris Ryder (Berkhamsted), 2. Adrian Waller (Potters Bar), 3. Adam Fuller (Berkhamsted), 4. Marc Woolhead (Stevenage), 5. Keith Timms (Broxbourne), 6. Scott Rickard (Berkhamsted – Captain).
L to R: Keith Timms, Adam Fuller, Scott Rickard, Adrian Waller, Marc Woolhead
I would like to thank our sponsors: Gary Spindler (JustRackets.com) and Marc Woolhead (Timeless Decorating); without which we would not have been able to field such a strong side.
The matches started at 10am on Saturday morning and our first round match was against a dangerous Lancashire team. Adam and Keith kicked things off and both won their first game relatively comfortably. Both Lancashire players were, however, not giving up and both managed to claw back one game before losing to the Herts boys 3-1. This put the team within one match of a semi-final place. Next on court was Chris Ryder whose opponent Nick Taylor, former England No 3 and World no 14 made life difficult in the beginning. Chris’ speed and fast paced attacking game was just too much for the Lancashire number 1 who went down 3-0. This sealed Hertfordshire first victory of the campaign and set up a semi-final with Sussex on Saturday afternoon.
The Semi Final saw Herts go 2-0 down as Keith and Adam struggled to overcome their opponents. This was a major setback and left Marc, Chris and Adrian with it all to do to get us through to another final. Marc was playing a 6ft7inch giant of a man with loads of talent. Some unbelievable shots at the front of the court saw Marc doing a lot of retrieving initially. Marc went 2-1 down but was not about to give up. With some excellently consistent tight squash, Hertfordshire’s very own “mail man” delivered once again with a 11-7 victory in the fifth. Herts’ number 1 and 2 were just too strong for their Sussex opponents and an awesome comeback was complete. This saw the team reach a second final in as many years.
Our opponents in the final were Surrey, whose impressive record of 5 victories in 7 years, meant that they were not to be taken lightly. Unfortunately Chris Ryder was unavailable for the final and that meant that the team had a massive handicap of having to play the out of shape skipper at 5. The captain played to form and literally got blown off court in about 20 minutes. Marc Woolhead on the other court was putting up a much better fight against his unorthodox opponent. Unfortunately, it was not his day and he succumbed 3-1 after a hard fought battle. This meant that the pressure was again on the other 3 boys to try and affect another comeback. Adrian wrapped up another impressive weekend with a solid victory over his England team mate, Joe Lee. Keith also found himself in a tough battle with a diminutive but talented Alex Ingham. At 2-0 up, it looked as though the fixture was going to go down to the wire for the second year in a row. Unfortunately, the Surrey player fought back well to win 11-8 in the fifth. Surrey were the new champions.
It is with sadness that I report that I am standing down as Herts Captain due to other commitments. It has been a pleasure to be involved in the team for the last 3½ years, but it is time for some new blood as they say. I am pleased to announce that Marc Woolhead has accepted the responsibility of taking over the captaincy and I wish him and the team every success in the future.
Scotty Rickard
East of England ESR Report: -
The Inter-County season, which started back in September, finally drew to a close on the first weekend in May, with the Men’s and Women’s Premier Division Finals. Sixteen teams (8 Men’s & 8 Women’s) competed to de-cide the eventual Champions, as well as who would stay in the Premier Division and who would be relegated to Division 1 next season.
Defending Champions
Hertfordshire started their defence with a narrow 3-2 win against Lancashire, who had hoped that home advantage might have inspired them! However, Chris Ryder, Adrian Waller and Adam Fuller didn’t let a little factor like that af-fect them and defeated their opponents comforta-bly. The Semi Final saw Herts go 2-0 down against Sussex but the mental strength of Marc Woolhead, Chris Ryder and Adrian Waller proved too much for the opposition. With a super 3-2 comeback win, Herts were into yet another final with just Surrey standing in their way of retaining the title. Hertford-shire, hopes were dented immediately by the un-availability of Chris Ryder. Adrian Waller pulled a game back to make it 2-1 after Surrey had raced ahead and were on the verge of taking the title in a 3-0 whitewash. Keith Timms looked as if he would take Herts level but his young Surrey opponent held out to take the match and the title. This was a fantastic effort from the Hertfordshire boys in getting to the Final 2 years running – well done!!Our other team was from
Essex who lost to Nottinghamshire leaving them with one game to save their season and league status against Yorkshire. However, the only tension on show was in the racket strings as Essex showed their class with a 5-0 trouncing of Yorkshire. Essex were to eventually finish 6th but were secure in the knowledge that they’ll be competing in the Premier division again next year.