Eighteen of the Club’s more dedicated players made the trip down the Hume Highway to Cootamundra on the weekend, for the second annual Queanbeyan/Cootamundra Squash Challenge.

The club’s best players ventured down on Friday evening for a bit of social squash, followed by a strategy session at the Central Hotel. As it turns out, drinking with the non-preferred hand is fraught with all sorts of dangers and Scotches at 3am certainly don’t help your squash game the following day. Although oddly enough, a 9am Gin and Tonic certainly lifted Sam Bobos’ game.

Dinosaurs were handed out and hung onto for dear life (unless your name is Gavin Jackson) and the formal proceedings started on Saturday morning. After a few matches, we all got dressed up and headed to the picnic races. Gav’s dinosaur chose not to come to the races.

Secret Dynamite was the club’s most successful horse, with many people jumping on number three with some success. The aptly named Low Flying Duck failed to impress.

Without a doubt, the lowlight of the day at the races was the poorly judged fashions on the field. Spurred on by Dutch Courage and a financial incentive from Trevor Scorer, Mitchell Fox was robbed when the judges awarded best dressed young male to some guy in a purple shirt.

We returned to the Central for a formal debrief and further strategy session. Some people strategised until the wee morning hours.

Sunday morning saw the final day’s play on what was a great weekend. Scorer, looking like death warmed up arrived late and was rightly fined. He then copped a nasty hit on the finger by Cootamundra President Tony Sheedy.

We took out the honours for the weekend’s squash, losing only six matches all weekend. Cootamundra Squash Club official Tony Sheedy judged Naveen Wijemanne as Queanbeyan’s most valuable player for the weekend. Keen selected Steven Cross as Cootamundra’s MVP.

Together, the clubs raised more than $750 for Camp Quality. For those interested, it only costs $20 bucks to hit Trev pretty hard with your racquet, certainly worth a think!

Big thanks to all those involved helping make the second trip to Coota a great weekend. Special praise to Trevor Scorer for making most of the arrangements.

Written by Mitch Fox

Photos by Gavin Jackson and Bob Martin

We got stroked at QBN/Bega Squash Challenge

There was more than one case of Déjà vu as many of the club’s more dedicated players and their partners travelled to Bega for the second (now annual) Queanbeyan /Bega Squash Challenge;

·         assembling at the McDonalds Queanbeyan at the crack of dawn

·         the pink shirt of shame

·         sampling some of the world’s best pies at Nimmitabel

·         Bob Martin’s penchant for BLT’s

·         checking into the Commercial Hotel (although some chose The Bank, just down the road)

·         playing in sweltering conditions

·         and driving home in pouring rain – just to name a few.

Most notably though, the people of Bega are incredible hosts and a great deal of fun was had by all.

A new, but somewhat familiar game was added to this year’s challenge – plastic animals were handed out to all players and fines issued for not showing due diligence protecting said animals. Serious breaches meant the guilty party had to either wear the shirt of shame, or look after a large teddy bear.

Despite the heat, we took out the honours in all four divisions, though there were some challenges.  Bega’s Troy Northey was too strong for our club’s best squash players and few from either side managed to keep a hold of their plastic animals.

In the end, we retained the tournament shield, Tom Rueger was voted Queanbeyan’s most valuable player, Craig Bassett was voted Bega’s MVP and we raised more than $300 for Camp Quality through fines. Other highlights included:

·         Andrew Bomm travelling all the way from Wagga Wagga to participate

·         Gavin’s camera envy when the Bega District News arrived with a bigger lens

·         Witnessing a Lunar Eclipse – the Moon’s disappearing completely on Sunday

All in all it was a terrific weekend and it was great to see so many partners come along for the fun.  Big thanks to Trev and Jeremy from Queanbeyan, Dennis, Dick from Bega and anyone who helped make the weekend such a success.

We hope to see you at the next trip!

Written by Mitch Fox

Photos by Gavin Jackson