All ages enter tournament

A miniature tent city sprung up over the weekend as avid squash players traversed the state to take part in the 24th annual FeNaClNG Squash Tournament in Dampier.

Dampier Squash Club president and tournament director Ewan Dickson said it was exciting to have such a wide range of age groups competing and to play against the experienced players from Perth.

“This year has been one of our biggest. We have about 88 players in this competition, and there are people from Tom Price, Paraburdoo, Perth, Exmouth, Broome, Karratha, Dampier and Wickham,” he said.

“People camp here over the couple of days, and it’s just a really fun weekend for all age levels.”

The weekend kicked off Friday evening with a dinner and coaching session by Neil Butler, a national level referee and former international referee who has been involved in the tournament for many years, before match play begun on Saturday.

Four different grades competed in the matches in the team-orientated tournament.

In the Sunday finals the A-grade winning team from Perth consisted of player-of-the-tournament Derek Nunn, Tim Cowell and Wayne Cowell The B-grade finals winners from Broome was made up of Glenn Bowman, Ryan De La Rosa, Geoff Evans and Greg Beacham.

A Tom Price team containing junior player-of-the-tournament Jeremy Gordon along with Jim Gordon and Tim Tietjen were the C-grade winners, while a home-town Dampier side of took home the D-grade title.