Report on U-17 Stage One inter county matches held at Abingdon Squash Club, Oxfordshire on 5th November 2006.

Herts U-17 team:

1.Oliver Dixon
2.Phillip Waller
3.Rhys Thomas
4.Alastair Booth
5.Ben Richards

A late withdrawal through injury by Ryan Mays meant that Alastair had to move up to 4 and Ben come in at 5 which was a tough ask for both players on their U-17 debuts.

The first match was Oxon versus Bucks which Bucks managed to win 5-0, with Oxon recording only a single game win-----points were therefore 1 to Oxon, 20 to Bucks.

The second match was Bucks versus Herts which was clearly going to be our toughest match. The results were:

Bucks Herts Score Games

Chris Blakey Oliver Dixon 0/3 3/9, 0/9, 2/9
Jonathan Maloney Phillip Waller 0/3 0/9, 5/9, 0/9
Harry Carr Rhys Thomas 0/3 3/9, 7/9, 2/9
Charlie Wyatt Alastair Booth 3/0 9/4, 9/4, 10/8
Stefan Lubek Ben Richards 3/2 6/9, 4/9, 9/2, 9/7, 9/5

SCORE 2/3 POINTS 6/16

Alastair put in a creditable performance against Charlie Wyatt who recently won the U-15 competition at Coolhurst. Ben went down narrowly over 5 games to an opponent who never stopped running. Our “Big Three”, Ollie, Phil and Rhys, were clearly in a different class however and secured the team victory, although Rhys had to work hard in the first two games against Harry Carr who was a determined opponent. Oliver and Phillip were on good form and dropped only 5 points each in their matches.

The second match looked like being easy-------------and it was.

Oxon vs Herts Score Games

Josh Rose Oliver Dixon 0/3 1/9, 2/9, 9/10
Edward Hopkins Phillip Waller 0/3 4/9, 1/9, 5/9
Jonny Neeves Rhys Thomas 0/3 0/9, 5/9, 4/9
Sam Parker Alastair Booth 0/3 0/9, 0/9, 1/9
Edward Nevins Ben Richards 0/3 7/9, 6/9, 7/9

SCORE 0/5 POINTS 0/20


Final positions and scores

1. Herts 36pts
2. Bucks 26pts
3. Oxon 1pt


Thanks to all the players for their contributions to a successful Stage One. Thanks also to the Dixons for their support and help with the transport.

Stage Two matches will be held on 4th February 2007 and if we can keep the squad free of injuries, then we must have a good chance of making the finals to be held on 25th March 2007.

Chris Thomas, U-17 County Team Manager