Racketball at Chichester

Later this year on sat 29th October Chichester Racquets & Fitness Club will be hosting a Harrow UK-Racketball Series event.  The event will be one of 8 events held nationwide forming the major racketball circuit in the UK.

Players from all around the country will be travelling to the south coast club to compete in one of the various categories such as Men’s A, Men’s B, Ladies’, Beginners’, Men’s o40, Men’s o50.

As with all the events the home club usually gives a good turnout of home players to help bolster up the entry and Chichester will be no exception.

The current and 4 time Men’s National Champion Tim Vail, a former coach at the club, started the ball rolling introducing racketball to the members.

Current head coach Mike Phillips carried the enthusiasm on and now there are as many members playing racketball as there are squash.

The club held its 1st open tournament in 2009 attracting many of the country’s top players with Yorkshire’s Graeme Williams taking the spoils.  This was followed in 2010 with another successful event, this time England no 4 Matt Baker was victorious.

The past 2 seasons have seen the standard of age group racketball grow from strength to strength.  At the 2010 British Championships club coach Mike Phillips got the ball rolling taking the national o5o title; during the same event Ian Graham took the o6o title; he also took the o55 event 5 years previously.

This year 2011, club PSL player Tim Vail took the senior men’s, Steve Wall ensured the o5o title remained at Chichester, Chris Nicholls new to the age group took the o55 title and Ian Graham proved he is head and shoulders above his rivals retaining his o6o title, not having dropped a game for 2 years.

Six national titles in the last 2 years from one club shows Chichester means business.  The Harrow UK-Racketball event on Oct 29th looks mouth-watering with a possible repeat of the national final where Mark Fuller will be looking for revenge over Vail.

Not to mention the strongest o5o event ever with o5o National Champions from the last 2 years going head to head, potentially Phillips v Wall.  This is backed up by the quality of o55 champ Nicholls, also the o55 National runner up and UK series veteran James Murphy, and not forgetting the current and 2 times o6o champ Ian Graham.

With all this racketball talent on show, coupled with the hard core racketball circuit players from all around the country, Saturday October 29th 2011 looks like a day to remember.

For further details about racketball at Chichester please contact Mike Phillips on 07790 541084, e-mail: mike@racketup.co.uk