Cromer were faced with their longest journey of the season when they travelled down the A140 for their Norfolk SRA Squash 57 Division Two fixture against Diss II.

Technical Director Barry Starling made two changes from the team who beat Broadland Swifts.

Peter Simmonds and Alistair Dunnett came into the team for their first matches in the first and second string slots while pensioners John Chandler and Martin Braybrook retained their third and fourth string positions.

Sadly for the Cromer team they found their opponents were more experienced at the larger ball game and this coupled with the fact that the four players had to put up with a 75 minute car journey immediately before going on court meant that they were on the back foot from the start.

Chandler, with one victory and one defeat behind him, was first on court and after losing the first game 13-6 it did look as though he would draw level when he led 12-10 in the second game.

But he lost the next four points to lose the game 14-12 and then lost the third game 13-9 to go down to a straight game defeat.

This was as close as Cromer came to winning a game as, despite their best efforts, the three other players all lost their matches in straight games.

Braybrook, who had won his two previous matches this season, was well beaten as his opponent never allowed him to dominate the centre of the court while Dunnett was not allowed to get into his stride at all and became the third player to go down to a 3-0 defeat.

To round off a disappointing night Simmonds found himself up against a very strong opponent, who is also nominated for his club's first team, and although he pushed him hard and reached 10 points in the third game he too lost in straight games which meant that the home team recorded a 16-0 maximum.

A rueful Starling said afterwards: 'We can't really have any complaints. The Diss catchment area is huge and we were simply well beaten by a much stronger team. We entered the league not necessarily to win matches but to give our players the opportunity to have an enjoyable evening's sport.'

Results: Peter Simmonds lost to Paul Newis 2-13 7-13 10-13, Alistair Dunnett lost to Paul Harris 3-13 4-13 2-13, John Chandler lost to Richard Cutts 6-13 12-14 9-13, Martin Braybrook lost to Ronnie Long 6-13 8-13 9-13.