IOMSRA – Squash Season restart after Lockdown 2 – Matches resume on Monday 26th April.
We had an IOMSRA Committee meeting at the end of last week and we agreed to the rescheduling of the squash season so that we can complete all the fixtures and tournaments.
We have a week to get in some much needed practice from Monday 19th April and the week starting on Monday 26th we will play a Week of League fixtures.
The Elites and Masters Tournament will now include the IOMSRA Ladies Championships too. We will re-advertise this event so be sure to enter it, as the draw from last time has been cleared. To enter go to the Google form shown on the Tournament Poster.
The League fixtures have been updated on League Master but over the next few days I will re-publish the draws on the Website with Fixture Images and Downloadable files.
Look forward to seeing you all on court in the near future. The Image below shows the rescheduling of the Matches and Tournaments.
The SRA Cup was played on Saturday 20th February at the NSC. This was a Team Blitz competition between teams of three players, but handicaps were applied to the individual matches to ensure every team that enters stand a chance. These handicaps were calculated using the Squash Levels handicapping method. The Tournament was well supported with 12 teams which were initially put into four pools with three teams in each.
Pool Mathew contained a works team called Team Costa, the Junior Academy coaches and a junior team called Pinoy Manx Alliance (PMA). In this pool of matches Cai Lewis played particularly well to gain good points for his team PMA to ensure they topped the group. Team Costa players Isaac Quayle and Charlie Beard played well in their match against the Junior Academy Coaches to claim the win for their team.
Pool Massaro consisted of Team Leith (a family team), Buchanans and Two Steaks and a Sausage (TSS), a team containing Shaun and Lance Wyllie and Phil Butler. TSShad two very close matches, only losing out by 5 or 6 points in each. The winning team in this pool was Buchanans who had a good win over Team Leith thanks primarily to a fine performance by their captain John Watterson.
Pool Willstrop brought together team Pitts and two junior teams. This was the closest group of the tournament with the meeting between the two junior teams particularly close. Harvey Douglas and Kai Kiernan both played well for their teams. However the Pitts team of Beth Jones, Terry Holt and Sarah Simpson did just enough to top the group by one point.
The fourth and final pool was Pool Perry which brought together B league title contenders the Sharks and the Outcasts along with LHD (Liam, Harry and Dave). At the end of the match between the Sharks and LHD just 0.48 points separated the teams. In the B League rivals match Outcasts Chris Cave and Liam Davies both restricted their opponents to just 14 points to ensure they got the win. So LHD versus Outcasts would decide the outcome of the match. Harry Douthwaite produced some great squash to finish 40 points ahead of his opponent and helped his team to take the match.
At this stage of the Tournament we had a 1st, 2nd and 3rd placed team in each pool. We arranged for the 3 first placed teams to play a semi-finals and a final and a third place play-off match. We also did the same for the second and third placed teams. By doing this at the end of the Tournament the teams would be ranked from 1 through to 12.
Places 9 to 12 were battled for by Team Costa, the Sharks, TSS and the Junior Academy C team. TSS got the better of Team Costa with all three players in the team getting victories whilst the juniors beat the Sharks. The final round finished with Junior Academy C team 9, TSS 10, Team Costa 11 and Sharks 12.
The teams ranked second in each group competed for the middle order places. Team Leith, a team containing two junior players, particularly enjoyed beating their Junior Academy coaches. Outcasts struggled to overcome Junior Academy B with Callum Larkin and Kai Kiernan making the most of the points weighting to get big wins against their opponents. At the end of the tournament we had Junior Academy B 5, Team Leith 6, Outcasts 7 and the Coaches 8.
Christian Webster was the winning captain of this tournament last year and his team PMA progressed to the final by beating Buchanans by 10 points. The other finalists were LHD who beat Pitts by 25 points with all three players in the team achieving wins. The third place match was between team Buchanan and team Pitts who normally play on the same team in league squash. This match saw Buchanan claiming the third place spot by beating team mates Pitts by the slender margin of 1.43 points.
The final brought together PMA and LHD. Christian Webster seemed very determined to keep the trophy and put in a captains performance to give his team a 20 point lead. PMA number two, Leighton Ginty, won by just 4 points but their third placed player Cai Lewis followed in his captains footsteps by winning by 20 points. So the winning team were PMA and Christian managed to keep the trophy for another year.
The group photo above shows kneeling in the foreground the winning team of ‘Pinoy Manx Alliance’, which consisted of, from left to right – Leighton Ginty, Christian Webster (Captain) and Cai Lewis. In the background there are some the other competitors in the Tournament.
The SRA CUP 2021 ‘Blitz’ Squash Tournament to be held onSaturday 20th February 2021
Tournament Format – This SRA Cup is a Team competition using a ‘Blitz’ format for games. Number 1 strings play, number 2 strings play then finally number 3 strings play. The players will play each other continually for 13 to 18 minutes and points scored by each player will be recorded. They will be modified/weighted, how is dependent on players handicaps.
Date and Times – The SRA CUP will be played on Saturday 20th February 2021. It will be played in the afternoon between 1 and 7 and will be restricted to 16 teams. Times will be dependent on teams entering. If we get 8 teams it will – 2 until 5.30; 12 teams it will be 1 until 6.30 and if we get 16 teams it will be 1 until 7.30
Teams and Squads – The SRA CUP is a Team competition and each match will be played between teams of 3 players, however a team of 3 players can be selected from a squad of up to 5 players. A player can only play for 1 squad/team in the tournament.
Details/Questions – If you have questions about the Tournament then email me, text me or speak to me. Or better still speak to someone who played in it last year. I am sure they would tell you it was enjoyable and encourage you to enter a team.
Entries – To enter the SRA CUP just send your team name, team captain and the list of players in your squad (between 3 and 5) to me and you will have a good chance of winning the SRA Cup.
Cost – It will cost a team £30 to enter the tournament.
The closing date for entries is Monday 15th February 2021, so get your entries to me ASAP to ensure you get a place in the draw.
This Tournament is restricted to the top 16 players, according to rankings (ELITE Players), that want to enter the Tournament. The MASTERS Tournament will run concurrently and is Over 40s, Over 50s and Over 60s age Categories.
Location – NSC
Dates – Monday 25th, Tuesday 26th, Thursday 28th & Friday 29th of January 2021 – Start time – 6.00pm
Competitors – The ‘Elites’ competition is restricted to the top 16 entries (according to the rankings). The ‘Masters’ is open to anybody who is over 40, over 50 or over 60.
Format for Elites – At the discretion of the Tournament Organiser, it will depend on the amount of entries
Format for Masters – At the discretion of the Tournament Organiser, it will depend on the amount of entries
Closing Date for Entries – Friday 22nd January 2021
Cost – £20 for Seniors (£30 for 2 events) and £15 for Juniors
To Enter or for further details contact Les Callow at
Email – les.c@manx.net / Text – 07624 494734
To Enter Copy and Paste the URL below into your Browser and you will be directed to the Tournament Entry Form –
Callum Larkin wins the Christmas Handicap Tournament 2020
The IOMSRA ran their final tournament before the Christmas break this week, the Tournament is called the ‘Christmas Handicap Tournament’. It makes use of the players national ranking points on‘Squash Levels’ to determine a points handicap so that, in theory, the matches should be very even.
The Tournament is a fun end of year tournament so players are encouraged to wear fancy dress whilst playing their matches which makes the squash very interesting. Prizes were awarded for the 3 best dressed competitors over the 3 competition nights as well as the traditional first, second and third places along with the plate andbowl winners too. In some of the pictures the prize winners are seen receiving their prizes from the tournament organiser.
A full report on the Tournament will follow this article early next week but for now here are some photos of the winners.
A group photo showing some of the Tournament competitors before the finals were played.
Winner – Callum Larkin
Runner Up – Ben Leith
Third Place – Steven Wright (pictured on the right)
Plate Winner – Vusimbe Zivave
Bowl Winner – Pat Fitzpatrick
First prize for best costume – Emma Leith (shown on the right)
Second prize for best costume – Isaac Quayle
Third prize for best costume – Dave Johnson (seated on the right)
A IOMSRA would like to thank all the competitors for really entering into the spirit of the event, there were some great costumes and some good squash was played during the 3 nights. They would also like two thank Douglas Golf Club for the use their facilities for an after competition social event.
