Bill Leaver won the inaugral Over 60s competition with a fine run climaxing in a strong performance against Peter Blair in the final who no doubt let Bill win as he felt guilty about actually being far too young to qualify for this age group. The competition was superby run by Paul Wilson.

The Over 40s was an open affair with pre-tournament bookies favourite Darren Nalton off skiing. Simon Etherington made a welcome appearance, looked very sharp and will be a dangerous addition to the leagues this coming month. The final was a tough old battle with Jim Morrisroe attacking hard and positively levelling the scores after 2 games. The next 2 games were both tight with Dominic just edging away in the latter stages of each to reatin his title.

Jim and Dom Enjoy a Tight One

The next tournament is already up for entries and is the Club Championship..

Impressive month for the juniors again. Scott Hanson started playing in the junior leagues for the first time this season, looked competitive throughout peaking with his first victory. Jamie Bulman, having chipped in with some cracking team performances this year was also involved in some tight matches, narrowly losing one, 3-2.

Emily continues to invite the pack to chase her and narrowly lungeds beyond the 3 figures for the season. The final league is a huge one though with 8 players in it and therefore a potential whopping 80 points available. Greg, Jack and the pack are still within shooting distance..

The England Squash rankings have just come out and Joe Dale has just broken into the top 10 lists for Under 13. Now adapting to a new pressure of playing at number 1 in many tournaments, Joe gained this fantastic honour in no small way to a top 25 finish in the British Junior Open – essentially the world title. This finish was the highest of all Durham and Cleveland entrants of whom the county can very proud as entry numbers are severely restricted on ability.

The February junior leagues are now up and they show some historic viewing. Joe Dale, Michael Jones and Sam Hill are missing for the first time and that’s for the excellent news that they are all well established in the senior leagues now.

This of course blows the title race wide open for the top three places all of which are trophy-linked. If this had happened last month, Greg Wass would table-topping but Emily McSorley has had a strong month and takes the mantle. Jack Kerr in his first season is handily positioned too but there is still plenty of time for Andrew Pollard, Scott Hanson, Jamie Bulman, Ted Shepherd or Conor Askins to seize third, second or even top spot. Onward to March..

The new monthly leagues are up for end-December / January 2010. All but one of the top division matches were played which was excellent but it would be good to see more games being played in other divisions.

Joe Dale produced a full series of 3-0 wins but thereafter everything was very tight. Sam Hill just nicked Michael jones for second place despite Michael winning their head to head. Emily McSorley, Greg Wass and Jack Kerr were even tighter with each of them beating each other such that Jack just nicked Greg by 1 point who just nicked Emily by 3 points. All the best to all of them for the new year.

The December England Squash competition superbly run again at Newton Aycliffe saw a white-wash of success for Durham and Cleveland in the boys under-pinned hugely by Redcar. Our county proudly took all the age group titles and Redcar were responsible for all but one of these. Joe Dale continued his strong season at Under 13, coming to the new pressures of top seedings. It seems unlikely that Luke Mabbott, long since accustomed to number one seedings, still qualifies for Under 15 but indeed he does and he secured the title too. The only title not taken by Redcar was won by Danny Hockborn so at least another fellow county member.

James Wass played strongly and will move up the senior team nominations after a powerful first half of the season. Greg Wass entered the Under 11 category and featured prominently. This group does not carry ranking points but is an excellent challenging prequel to them. Sandwiched between the two Wass’s was Sam Hill in the Under 13 who had a tidy first round victory before doing himself no disservice in his next round defeat.