BOWDON Squash Club clinched victory over New Brighton last week thanks to the intervention of a late arrival.

A late pull out from the team by Chris Ryder due to injury left Bowdon without a number one against a very close-matched side, lying a place above Bowdon in the league.

A mad scramble for a replacement revealed a young New Zealand player, visiting England for a year to improve his squash and miraculously looking for a team in the North West Counties Division One to play for.

Martin Knight was quickly signed up and travel arrangements made to bring him to Bowdon from Halifax for a match starting only two hours later.

The match started with Adam Murrills and Si Taylor playing first.

Murrills took the first two 9-0 and could have fully expected a similar score in the third, but lost concentration and fiddled around with a loose, uncharacteristic choice of shots, making it difficult for himself but finally taking the third 10-8.

Looking tired after a 5am start that morning, Taylor dropped the first, but pulled his game together to take the next three in a scrappy match from both players.

With two in the bag Bowdon had to get one of the final three matches for a win.

Not producing his best squash, but certainly showing an improvement on some earlier performances, Mike Knight was overcome by his opponent in a very hard-hitting match, but managed to poach a team point on the way to his 1-3 defeat.

Nick Murrills played a very evenly matched opponent in Richard Birks, unfortunately dropping the first two 9-10 and 8-10 respectively.

Going for everything, he triumphed in the third only to drop the fourth and lose 1-3.

With it all down to the number ones, Bowdon's new unknown' player made impressive mincemeat of his opponent Darren Lewis in the first two games, winning them two and five.

The final game was a real nailbiter, with extremely long rallies and accurate athletic squash, and Martin Knight was pleased to be able to prove his future value to the team and clinch his tie 3-0 and the match 3-2.

Bowdon moved up to seventh position in the league and, with all the top teams now out of the way, can look forward to the possibility of further improvements before the Christmas break.