The third round of North London Region National Cadet League matches for 2018/19 was held at Ellenborough TTC, Enfield on Sunday 13 January 2019. After the second round of matches it was decided that there would be promotion and relegation between the four Divisions. Thus no points would be carried forward and all Teams would start again with no points for the final two round of matches. 

For the A Team with Sam Mortimer-Ford required to play in an important football match reserve Aidan Noguchi joined Ben Porter and Ewan Hynd. For the B Team a phone call from Sue Mapes informed me that Joachin had been involved in a motor accident on the Thursday evening and had injured his knee although not serious. We agreed he should not try to play. After several phone calls I had still not found a player (all playing football) so I had to ask Adi and Daren to try. When I got home just before 11.00pm an E-mail from Adi revealed that Alan could play. It seemed that he had no TTE Licence but he was able to get one before start of play on the Sunday morning to join James Donald and birthday boy Sudheep Kamma. 

The A Team’s first match was against the Woodford Wells 2 team who had been promoted from Division 3 and had beaten our B Team 7-2 in December. Aidan lost the first match against Carl Partridge -6, 12, 9, -9, 4 but after that the remaining eight matches were all won by the Chelmsford team. Ben was taken to a fourth game by Carl whilst Ewan and Aidan were both taken to a fourth game by Adam Sandhu, Ewan winning that 13-11 having lost the third game 11-13. 

Their next match was against Graham Spicer B, the team that stayed in the Division with the B Team. Having beaten them 9-0 and 8-1 the B Team were looking for another good win. Neal Prabhu was again their best player losing 7, -11, 6, 12 to Ewan, 6, -7, 9, 13, 5 for Ben to gain revenge for his defeat last time and 8, 10, 8 to Aidan. Oliver Cheung took Aidan to a fourth game in the opening match and Hayden Syme did the same in his match with Ewan. All the other matches were won 3-0 for a 9-0 win. They now led their final match opponents, the Ellenborough A team relegated from Division 1, by three points.  

In the opening matches Aidan lost to Noah Hacking 3-1 while on the adjacent table Ben beat Jackson Mcfarland 3-0. The next two matches were also shared, Ewan defeating Max Gonpot 3-1 while Ben lost a very close match with Noah 13, 4, -9, 10. In the match of the two defenders Aidan managed the win against Max 7, 13, 12 and with Ewan’s 3-0 win against Jackson the team led 4-2. Ewan also lost to Noah but with Ben and Aidan winning their final matches a 6-3 win and a lead of six points to take forward to the final round of matches.    

Ben and Ewan won 8 out of 9 matches and Aidan 7 out of 9. 

DIVISION 2 TABLE

                                                 P          W         L          Pts

Chelmsford A                          3          3          0          23

Ellenborough A                       3          2          1          17

Woodford Wells 2                   3          1          2           8

Graham Spicer B                    3          0          3            6

For the B team the opening match was against Mossford 2, the team relegated from Division 2. A good start with James and Sudheep both winning 3-0 against Aryan Sharma and Yuvraj Singh. It was now initiation time for Alan and he started off well winning the first two games 11-2, 13-11 against Arjun Kumar. However he lost the next two 8-11 and 6-11 but held his nerve in the final game to win it 12-10. Alan went on to beat Yuvraj -6, 9, 9, 10 but lost his final match to Aryan 3, 10, 9. An excellent start. James and Sudheep each won their other two matches, all 3-0.    

The team then played Graham Spicer Girls who had been promoted from Division 4. The opening two matches were shared, James eventually defeating Lucy Adams 10, -10, 3, -9, 7 while Sudheep lost to Chui-Que Wong 3-1. In the next two matches Alan lost to Evelyn Page 3-0 while James beat Chui-Que 3-1. This was becoming a very close match which carried on as Alan beat Lucy 3-0 and Sudheep lost to Evelyn 9, -7, -12, 6, 5. Two more five game matches but both were lost, Alan to Chui-Que after winning the first two games and James to Evelyn -9, -12, 10, 11, 8. Sudheep won the final match over Lucy 3-0 to lose 5-4 in a very good match.

Their final match was against Ellenborough B who they had previously beaten 8-1 and 9-0. The B team stormed in to a 5-0 lead with James and Sudheep winning their first two matches with both needing a fourth game to beat Seth Mayuga and Alan beating Thomas Horncastle 3-1. Alan was so close to winning his next match against Kyle Kam coming back from 2-0 down only to lose 13-11 in the decider. James and Sudheep both won their final matches 3-1 for a 7-2 win. They trail the Girls team by three points.     

James Donald 8 out of 9, Sudheep Kamma 7 out of 9 and Alan 4 out of 9.

DIVISION 3 TABLE

                                                              P          W         L          Pts

Graham Spicer Girls                          3          3          0          22

Chelmsford B                                     3          2          1          19

Ellenborough B                                  3          1          2           8

Mossford 2                                         3          0          3           5

A good performance by all the players.

There will be no promotion and relegation between the Divisions after this round of matches

The next round will be three matches on Sunday 24 March 2019 and finishing time is likely to be between 3.30pm. and 4.00pm

Arthur C Clark - Chelmsford Junior Match Secretary