In days of yore Dunstable Squash Club had what was called a Development Team which used to take on challenges from other clubs and organisations which had either made contact, or, more often than not, me making contact with them. So it was that recently the Queen Mother Sports Centre league contacted me to arrange a challenge match.

The team that made the trip to Victoria, London was made up of Dean Pike, the Captain from our County Championship winning team, Charlie Lee, sadly not a current team member, but club member nevertheless, John Stevens and me.

Dean and Charlie despatched their opponents with comparative ease, the exposure to regular team squash and overall experience shining through, John made heavy weather of his match and on another day could have won more easily, but fair play to his opponent who kept him honest and took the match to a 5th game, where John finally prevailed. QMSC managed to prevent a clean sweep due my failure to take a game, albeit a dodgy refereeing call at 13 each in the third played its part (well that's my excuse and I am sticking to it!!!)

If anyone is interested in putting their name down for such ad-hoc challenges (we try and match abilities) then let either John or I know, we have outstanding invites from Crieff, Scotland and Paris to name just two.