Let’s start with the end. With the final result. A 4-0 defeat. You wonder, how ECSC 1 managed to achieve so poorly? Well, sometimes there is a very thin line between a draw or being trashed. If you were not in Gosselies last week, I can imagine that you imagine that we were trashed. But come on, it ain’t that simple! For surely, we had some good chances to end up with an honorable draw against, more than probably, the strongest team in the play-offs.

Artur and Pedro were indeed swept off, no big story. A 3-0 and another 3-0 against two B3 players. It might be that both Artur and Pedro were performing under their usual level. This happens sometimes. We all have these moments.

Having said this, Bram performed very well but still did not manage to beat his strong C1 opponent. He ended up losing 3-1 in a very much disputed match. Bram was leading 9-5 in the fourth game but managed to lose 12-10 eventually. He was close to playing a final game and, with his close to perfect physical shape, he might as well have beaten his opponent then.

John had a great chance of beating his opponent. Leading 2-1 against a seriously fit opponent. Only then the referee, a so called hipster, decided to help his teammate (and John’s opponent) with several very controversial calls. The result? A superbly peaceful John lost 3-2.

Yes, there is room for improvement. But let us not think that the 3rd division is out of sight. We only just started our campaign and we all know that we are slow starters.

Last but not least. Our opponents were ranked B3, C1, C2 and C3. No doubt all of them know the squash rules. So why were they not taken into consideration by our opponent’s referees? That is the one million dollar question. Of course, playing squash without making mistakes is an illusion for us. The same can be said about referees. After all, we are all human beings. But, a bad (or even non-existing) knowledge of the rules cannot be acceptable at this level. This will distract players from their game, complicate matches (for both referee and players) and poison the ambience between the clubs-players involved.