Essex will have a fourth team at the Inter-Counties Finals after England Squash rightly put our Under-19 boys’ team into the showpiece finals.
It was discovered that Hertfordshire had misled Essex and England Squash by playing an ineligible player then claiming the points against all the rules of the competition.
Herts had earlier refused to play in the first round of the competition and had demanded a bye into round two, which England Squash remarkably agreed to.
However, their invalid stage-two team selection and failure to inform their opponents or England squash has led to Herts being removed from the finals and Essex, belatedly, taking their rightful place.
So we now have our Under-19 boys, Under-17 girls, Under-15 boys and Under-13 girls in the English Inter-County finals. Our Under-15 girls are also in the Trophy finals making it a quite remarkable season for Essex Junior Squash players.
Well done everyone.
Below is a copy of the letter from England Squash to EJS Secretary David Harris explaining why, even at this incredibly late stage, justice was finally done with Essex U-19 boys heading for Nottingham later this month.
Hi David,
Hope you have had a good Christmas and New Year’s.
We are contacting you as some information has come to light regarding the issues surrounding the Essex vs Herts Stage 2 game.
We spoke with the captain for the Hertfordshire team before Christmas and came back to an email today sent to us whilst we were out of office, in which he explained to us that he believed Essex had won the stage 2 fixture. I contacted the team captain of Hertfordshire this morning to clarify what he meant by this and he explained to us that he thought Essex had won the game 3-2 as the Herts 5th player in the game should have been awarded as a walkover to Essex.
Unsure of whether they made your team aware of this before playing but essentially Hertfordshire have confirmed with us that their team was a group of 4 with a walkover for the 5th. However Herts played an ineligible higher ranked player as a 5th seed to ensure the 5th seed of Essex would still get a game as an exhibition. They did so under the presumption that it would still be awarded as a walkover to the 5th Essex player. As a result this has caused some confusion as this has obviously not been communicated correctly by them to either yourselves or the Intercounty team.
Due to this when results have been entered, the Herts 5th seed appeared with the results of that 5th game when in fact it should have been entered as a walkover to Essex. The score of this game has changed the overall outcome in favour of Hertfordshire when in fact the game should have been awarded as a 3-2 win to Essex. This will be changed on league masters shortly to reflect this and would also mean that the Essex boys U19s would advance to the main finals in Nottingham on January 14th finishing top of the Region 4 group.
With the finals only around the corner we wanted to confirm with yourselves whether Essex would be able to attend the finals? If so I can get all the details updated as soon as possible and amend the fixture schedule.
Thanks
Intercounty Team (England Squash)