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It's not for the money!
by Chris Fuller
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Only the Germans! - Chris Fuller Professional Squash Player's Blog
German Budesliga 2 has a completely different format to any squash event or league I have ever played. Unlike in England where most matches are played on an evening between 2 teams in Germany 3 teams compete over an afternoon. As well as this there are only 4 players in a German League side compared with the usual 5 in England. All the teams meet at 1pm for the first match, when team 1 plays team 2 and team 3 referees. First on court are the numbers 3 and 4 refereed by the subsequent numbers 3 and 4 from team 3 meaning that you end up refereeing the people you have to play later in the day! This means unlike every other time I ever ref where I want the match to be over as quickly as possible I ref wanting the match to be as long and as hard as it can be so I can try and pick up the pieces later in the day!
Once those matches are finished team 1 then goes straight on to play team 3 with no rest at all therefore meaning that quite often you can have finished a match at 2.30pm and be back on court playing another match by 3 if the match before you has been quick!
Only the Germans could come up with such a system!
Regardless of the schedule I managed to come home with a couple of wins under my belt. In the end I didn't end up playing Simon Frenz after all as we were playing his team last and as his age now he preferred to only play 1 match per day. I was treated to playing another ex German National Champion in my second match though (I won my first 3-0) in the form of Florian Posl. Again I snuck through 3-0 but not before a really tough second game witch I won 16-14 after some outrageous winners from Florian who was clearly enjoying a big German crowd going crazy every time he won a point!
A good enjoyable weekend though and some good matches prior to my first PSA in a while in Austria later this month. First though England Academy fitness testing next week ....
