The Rest of the World take the honours!

​

 

Belton v Rest of the World, competition and social evening 2025

 

For a relatively small village, Belton-in-Rutland has an extraordinarily large number of squash and racketball players who are members of Rutland Squash Rackets Club and play regularly each week.

​

The annual RSRC Belton v Rest of the World event on June 19th provided a wonderful climax to the end of the 2024-25 squash season. The teams were well matched and the rules were that three games should be played between each of the paired contestants and the team with the greater number of games would be the winners.

​

First up were Brian Margetts (B) v Greg Watts (RoW). Having won the Willis Plate on Finals Night, Brian was on top form and moved Greg around the court with ruthless efficiency, never letting up at any point and securing a strong 3-0 win.

​

On the other court were Laurie Redmond (B) and Katharine Gaine (RoW). Laurie had been lured out of squash retirement by team captain Brian and showed fine skills and touches around the court despite his lack of game play. Katharine was lucky that the first game tie-break went her way and that Laurie gifted her a number of points thereafter when he hit the ball back at himself, which allowed her to emerge as 3-0 winner.

​

With the scores level at 3-3, the next two matches paired up Guy Jones (B) v Helen Ike (RoW) and Simon Steele (B) v Andrew Brown (RoW). It is probably fair to say that Guy’s physical presence on court is formidable, and it was also the case that Helen was feeling below par but had bravely turned out to support the RoW team. The combination of these factors meant that Guy secured a 3-0 win which gave Belton the edge.

​

However, on the other court Andrew Brown (former RSRC Chairman and recently rejoined) was giving Simon Steele a hard time. Having only recently undergone a hip operation and having sworn not to play squash again until December(!), Simon’s movement around the court was extraordinarily impressive. However, Andrew’s consistently powerful left hand drives to the back of the court proved too much for Simon and the match went to Andrew 3-0. So now it was scores level at 6-6 and only two matches to go.

​

The final matches brought up Martin Brown (B) v Michael Crawford (RoW) and Jon Wolloff (B) v Richard Park (RoW). Martin is renowned for his unconventional returns of serve into the bottom corner of the front wall, but sadly for him they were not working as well as usual, which allowed Michael to secure some easy points off the serve. Both men played some wonderful drives and subtle drop shots and the games were close. but in the end Michael closed out the match 3-0.

 

It was clear then that Jon Wolloff (B) had to beat Richard Park (RoW)  3-0 in order to force a tie-break. Richard had to win just one game in order to secure a long-awaited win for RoW. Many of those watching were aware of the Wolloff-Park rivalry (always friendly!) that has been ongoing for many years and were keen to see how things would unfold. The first game was fast and furious, with both men making some uncharacteristic errors (probably due to the unusual warmth of the courts), but eventually Richard managed to secure the crucial game that would see a victory for RoW. Jon, however, was not going to let Richard beat him on an individual basis even if the team match had been lost, and produced some exquisite serves and fiery drives in the next two games to ensure that Belton won the final two games.

​

Overall it was therefore a very close 10-8 win to RoW for the 2025 contest.

 

Following an excellent meal at The Vaults, the trophy was presented to RoW team captain Katharine Gaine.