The date? Tuesday 4th March 2008.

The time? 6pm.

The place? Donyngs Leisure Centre, Redhill.

The event? Squash.

The contestants? Ash, Bruno, Chris, Ian, Jay, Marc C, Marc H.

Here are the basic rules of Squash:

In order to determine who serves, one player spins their racquet whilst the other nominates the letter (e.g. On a Wilson racquet the options will be "W" or "M", depending on which side the racquet lands).
The serve has to be played with at least one foot in the service box, the ball has to hit the front wall between the service line and the out line. The ball then has to land in the opponents side of the half-court line. Once the ball is in play, the players can stand anywhere and hit the shot between the tin and the outline on the front wall.

Shots may be played off of either side wall or the back wall before or after the ball has hit the front wall. If the ball bounces twice then the point/serve goes to the player who hit the shot. If the shot hits the tin then the point/serve goes against the player who hit the shot.
Players can only score when they have the serve. The first player to reach 9 is the winner. The winner has to be at least two points clear of their opponent, so in the event of a 9-8 match, the players would have to continue until 10-8. And so on.

Got it? Good.

The matches were played in a league format, with each game score recorded in the event of a tie. Jonny's departure had scuppered our plan to keep the whole thing running smoothly, so with 7 people instead of the original 8, we had one person sitting out in each round. As it went, it was quite a nice thing to do actually. It gave us a chance to rest our weary legs before our next match.

There were far too many matches to document individually, so I'll give a run down of how each person performed. Yeah, that's the way.

Ash:

Ash had never played squash before. That's a fact. All things considered, he played very well and picked up the rules rather speedily. He was let down by his service game, but overall he performed admirably. He won one of his games, against Marc H, so another dead loss was avoided like the proverbial plague.

Bruno:

Ahh, Bruno. Going into the tournament, he had aspirations of cheating. This would have involved trying to hit people with the ball so as to secure an automatic point; but luckily he saw sense and didn't resort to cheating. He took a severe whack in the head from Ian's racquet, which was quite funny in all fairness. Bruno won two of his games, against Marc H and Ash. Well done.

Chris:

Christopher. What a jerk. He won all his games, played like a right sneaky bastard. Dirty little shots followed by crafty little shots. He was nearly given a run for his money by Jay and Marc C, but somehow he managed to sneak his way out of trouble. All this, without wearing any trainers.

Ian:

Some very enjoyable rallies were had by Ian, as well as a couple of nasty shots taken to the body and the arm. The game with Marc C was very close, as was the game against Brunol. All the others were either sure-fire winners, or dead losses. He won 3 of his games, and lost 3. A nice record. Please count Bruno, Ash and Marc H as his victims.

Jay:

For someone who had only started playing squash a couple of months beforehand, Jay has come on in leaps and bounds. He hits the ball so hard, it's actually really annoying. He beat everyone apart from Chris, and that was a very close game indeed. Quite possibly the best match of the entire event.

Marc C:

The perenially injured but always astounding Marc C was nursing a pectoral muscle injury, but still managed to beat most everyone. Avoided a scare in his first game against Ian, but came back to win comfortably against all but Chris and Jay. The eternal achiever, Marc C secured his third place podium finish with some exquisite shots and effortless footwork.

Marc H:

Poor Marc H. It was only his second match in the history of the world, and didn't it show? Full credit to him though, he didn't once get annoyed. He plays with a smile and takes his losses lying down. Lost both games to Ian 9-0, but still shook his hand. What a gentleman. Marc Hcame last, losing all his matches.

So with all the games played, the standings were as follows:

Well done to our intrepid competitors, may their ghosts haunt all the squash courts in the land. Here are some videos of our fellows in action:

Lesson(s) learned:

Squash is great fun, just make sure you don't get hit by any stray shots. And don't fall over. And don't backflip off the wall and land on your head.