The fourth and final round of North London Region National Junior League matches for 2016/17 was held at Ellenborough TTC, Enfield on Saturday 25 February 2017. Due to a family commitment Matthew Laws was unable to play for the A Team so Matthew Elliott’s Buttsbury team colleague Nathan Fry completed the A Team with Connor Payne. For the B Team Harry Rogers, Adam Chalk and Aidan Noguchi played enabling Jamie Penkman to take his first driving lesson. After the third round of matches both teams were second bottom in their respective Divisions.

The A team’s first match was against Mossford A, currently second in the Table, and who they had lost 8 1 to in the second round of matches. Connor avenged his previous defeat by Joshua Ball with a hard fought narrow -7, 9, -7, 10, 8 win whilst Matthew’s win over Ben Williams was a point closer in their decider after Matthew had opened up a 2-0 lead. Nathan was also involved in a deciding game in his opening match with Numayr Malik but unfortunately for him it was 11-9 against. Ben then made the match score 2-2 when defeating Connor 3-1. Nathan then opened his account with a three 7’s win over Joshua and Matthew involved in another five game match, this time with Numayr which resulted in a 11-8 win and two matches later Connor’s deciding game win over Numayr was even closer, 13-11 to give the team a 5-3 lead. Although Matthew lost the last match 3-0 the Chelmsford team’s great win eventually helped to deny the Mossford Team the runner’s up position.

Their next match was against Barnet and with the previous match win they had now moved above them in the Table. Marco Plate was the thorn against the team winning his three matches although it was 11-9 in the deciding game against Connor and Marco went on the win three more against the Mossford to finalise their failure to finish as runners up. Connor beat Joe Newman in another deciding game but after then losing the first game 7-11 to Matthew Joe had to scratch having injured his back and he took no more part in the match. Nathan beat Marcus Charalambous 3-0 and when Connor beat him 11-9 in another deciding game another 5-4 win was achieved.

Their last match was against the leaders Graham Spicer who led the table by 46 points. The shock of the match was a -7, 3, 8, 6 win for Nathan over David Suk, one of only six that the team as a whole had lost over fourteen rounds of matches and the same three players had played in every match. Connor had lost his three matches all 3-0 and Matthew had taken a game off David and Damion Gray. Asa Gauntlet was their third player and although dropping a game to Nathan in his opening match he won the other two 3-0.

A Team.          Connor Payne 4 out of 9, Matthew Elliott 3 out of 8 and Nathan Fry 3 out of 8.

The B Team’s first match was against middle of the Table Ellenborough B. Both Harry and Adam lost their opening matches 3-1 to Richard Huang and Camron Malcolm respectively. Aidan then beat Jonathan Caxton 3-0 but lost his next match to Richard 3-0. With Harry losing to Camron the team were 4-1 down but then came the fight back. Adam and Harry both beat Jonathan 3-0 and with Aidan defeating Camron 3-1 this brought the match score to 4-4. Alas Adam lost the last match to Richard for a narrow defeat, a slightly better result than the previous match between the two teams.

Their second match was against Warren Spring B who were currently equal second in the table. Adam fought back from 2-0 down in his opening match with Samuel Dermont only to lose the decider 8-11 and Aidan lost 3-1 to Arshbir Singh. Although Harry beat Amar Parmir 3-0 with Aidan losing to Samuel 3, -7, 11, -12, 8 they were 3-1 down. Like in the first match the fight back started. Adam and Harry both beat Amar and Arshbir respectively 3-1 and with  Aidan winning 3-0 against Amar as well the team were 4-3 up. Although Adam lost his last match 3-1 to Arshbir on the other table Harry won the pushing match, his longest match of the day by far, against Samuel 10, 9, -10, -9, 5 to gain a 5-4 win for the team, a massive win in the circumstances.

Their last match was against Fusion 2 who were now in the runners up position following Warren Spring’s defeat. Fusion were determined to attain the Runners up Table position and duly won 8-1. Aidan won the team’s only win coming back from 2-0 down to beat Robert Domingo 11-7 in the decider. Fusion’s other two players were Elliott Namafox and Larry Trumpuskaz. Harry lost 3-1 to both Robert and Elliott and Adam by the same margin to Robert and Larry.

B Team           Harry Rogers 4 out of 9, Adam Chalk 2 out of 9 and Aidan Noguchi 4 out of 9.

DIVISION 1 TABLE                           

 DIVISION 2 TABLE                           

Looking back over the four day’s play all the players in both teams have supported one another and enjoyed playing players that they have never seen before and gained valuable experience from the different styles of the opponents.

Arthur C. Clark - Junior Match Secretary