Match Report  (courtesy of Dave Wackrill)   

    Adeyfield 1st   5 - 5   Crown & Sceptre A   

Canny Ken thwarts Nigel treble   

Crown & Sceptre A ace, Ken Stonebridge, fresh from his triumph at Thornbury at the weekend, where he won the VETTS Western Masters over 70s doubles title with occasional partner Roy Norton (they were also European Silver medallists in Finland in 2015), helped his relegation threatened team to a hard won draw against the League leaders. Ken was the star of the match, with a fine hat-trick that denied Adeyfield skipper Nigel Finn a unique treble of his own, having beaten Ken in the two earlier encounters this season - a tremendous feat in itself, matched only by John McCance. 

The two combatants met in the 8th set, with Ken levelling the match score at 4-4. It was an intriguing battle with Nigel declaring  “this isn’t over yet” after being squeezed out of the first game 11-9. Nigel led 8-7 in the second with one of the shots of the night, a backhand chop smash, always a difficult shot to execute, but that game slipped away from him too, and the third was more one-sided. Earlier Nigel had lost to the all action Richard Hardy, for the visitor’s only other singles win. 

We gave a debut here to Bruce Ghaemi from our 4th team, who is 100% in Division 2 & looking for tougher opposition. Wily Ken proved too tough, but the Freddy Mercury lookalike sailed past Richard and Bill Higgins, with plenty to spare. A fine prospect for the future. 

I beat Bill in the 9th set to re-establish our lead, but the Stonebridge/Hardy combination proved a winning one at the death, to enable our visitors to escape with a draw. We led 7-6 in every game but just couldn’t finish them off.

We had started the night 20 points clear of 2nd placed Flamstead and ended it 25 points ahead, so nearly there to yet another title. Our own 2nd team could now do our team a huge favour in ensuring the title stays in our trophy cabinet by taking some sets from our rivals when they meet on Thursday. Good luck to them.

Finally, this was the 50th match (everywhere) that I’ve played in this season, a landmark achieved for the 47th year.