Bedford’s Club Towers crowned a host of winners at the annual Bedfordshire Squash County Closed Championships over the course of a long weekend at the beginning of January, with number one seed, Gbenga Adeyi claiming the A-Grade title.
Flitwick’s Nick Cartwright picked up the B-Grade trophy along with Club Towers’ very own, Alexis White collecting the C-Grade prize, while Ian Thomas collected the Over 55’s title.
There were also a host of plate winners on a bumper weekend of squash action.
9-time champion, Steve Davies was missing from the tournament’s top grade, leaving the A-Grade competition extremely open, although all four top seeds made the semi-finals.
Number one seed – and eventual champion – Gbenga Adeyi brushed aside Biggleswade’s Nathan Derrick 3-0 in the first semi-final but the second semi-final turned into a marathon between Ben Mann and Ben Shakespeare, with the former taking the match 3-2.
However, Adeyi showed his class in the final, again winning 3-0 (11-4, 11-6, 11-9) to take home the title against newcomer, Mann.
Biggleswade’s, Ryan Harper won the A-Grade Plate final defeating Neville Jeyaratnam 3-1 in the final.
In the B-Grade trophy, Nick Cartwright from Flitwick was too strong for OU’s Dave Gibson.
Cartwright had already beaten an OU player in the form of Dan Jacob, 3-0 (15-12, 15-12, 15-9) in the semi-final before sweeping aside Gibson by another 3-0 whitewash (15-2, 15-9, 15-10) to take home the B-Grade trophy.
The B-Grade Plate became one of the most competitive tournaments of the weekend, and was eventually won by Club Towers’ junior player, Toby Sutliff (pictured above).
He beat another Club Towers player in Adam Soilleux, who had earlier come through the semi-finals against Biggleswade’s, Chris Hunt.
Soilleux won that semi 3-1, including a 15-13 final game but came unstuck against youngster, Sutliff.
The C-Grade trophy was the biggest draw of the weekend, attracting 24 players from across the county, with second seed, Alexis White taking home the prize.
He beat 12th seed, Bedford Bulls’ Charlie Jessop 3-0 (15-10, 18-16, 15-12) in the final although Jessop put up a good fight across all three games.
Earlier in the day, Jessop had fought back to win 3-2 from 2-1 down against Patryk Konopacki in the semi-final.
White had earlier survived his own scare; beating Club Towers’ youngster, Charlie Jenkins 16-14 in the deciding fifth game in the very first round but eventually found his groove in despatching Jessop in the final.
There was also an Over-55s event with a Club Towers face-off in the final, where Ian Thomas prevailed 3-2 against Matthew Towers in an enthralling affair.
Thomas won the first two games 11-3 and 11-5, however Towers managed to get going in the third and fought back to take the next two 11-5 and 11-4.
Towers raced into a 5-1 lead in the final game, but Thomas took ten of the next twelve points to take the final game 11-7 and with it, the title.
Stephen Mullins (Flitwick) won the final of the plate competition, proving too strong for Luton’s, Thomas Garlich, winning 3-0.
2026’s event is already in the calendar and will take place across the weekend of 9-11 January 2026.
