DESPITE all the confusion over courts towards the end of season the last few remaining league matches went ahead and the team league positions were finalised.
After a few years absence the C league was resurrected, with only International Divers back after a year off and the rest of the league made up of newly constituted teams. The Racketeers ended the season propping up the table but, despite having no wins to their credit, they enjoyed every match they played, as their match reports testified.
Such was their enthusiasm and spirit that they left the season ending Squash Ball with a special award. Divers, along with All About Gardens and the Junior’s junior team, Habib European Bank Lions, were all pretty evenly matched for most of the season.
Towards the end Gardens fell away to leave Divers and Lions fighting it out for the runner-up spot, an honour that duly went to the Divers, but only by a mere 21 points (3234 against 3213). The run away winners were Apollo Consultancy whose consistency saw them through undefeated. Apollo deservedly won the title by a clear margin of nearly 200 points.
The B league saw only one new team, in the shape of Verve Consultants, though they were made up of several experienced players (old hands?). The change of ownership at Onchan saw Angie’s Angels renamed Roy’s Rockets and it was these two who fought it out in mid-table, the Rockets just having the edge when the dust settled.
Onchan Juniors gained much useful experience and improved noticeably throughout the season to leave SMP propping up the table. At the top it was perennial winners Island Exhaust Systems battling it out against Jewel Tech. Island Exhaust make much of the fact that they have won in the past despite fielding the oldest team in the league.
This year it went down to the last round of games but this time the oldies lost out as Jewel Tech snatched the title by 23 points (4196 to 4173).
The A league was again run with teams of three, rather than five as in the lower leagues, and again Edgewater Associates fielded two teams. These two were destined to find themselves in the lower half of the league and the A team, perhaps naturally, won that particular battle, taking 10 wins to the B team’s 4 though there was no other team between them.
Stone Art managed one more win than Edgewater B but that did not prevent them finishing at the bottom of the pile, not helped by their sponsor dropping a five tonne trailer on his foot midway through the season. Last year’s winners, Cains Advocates, couldn’t find the same form this year and finished just below Gamers in mid-table; Gamers racked up 14 wins to Cains 11.
That left two new names in the top three with MAS Plc taking the third spot, but only by 29 points over Gamers (2519 to 2566). It was the consistency of MAS, scoring well even in defeat, which gave them that honour as they only racked up 10 wins. A further 19 points to the good, Motorvation finished in second spot, taking 13 wins in the process. Top spot went to Island Restorations by a comfortable margin winning 17 of their 21 matches.
Congratulations to all the trophy winners, commiserations to those who didn’t get any silverware and here’s looking forward to the next season.
All match reports can be found at www.iomsra.com
