Jason’s appearance wasn’t a surprise as I’d been told last week that he was playing his second match of the season after playing Nat West in the first half. He again won two losing to Pete, 8 in the fifth, someone he’s never beaten. 

Johnny was unlucky not to beat Jason when he perhaps should have won the first leg before losing 16-14. Johnny was then 10-5 or 6 down in the fifth and came back to 8 before capitulating. 

I’ve not beaten Jason for many years, probably since the ball size changed, and we worked out we’ve probably been playing each other since perhaps 1994. Close this time but no cigar for me losing in four 12-10. 

Karma’s only other leg on the night was for Ben against Johnny in the first leg before Johnny asserted himself. 

Ben’s claim to fame is to be the first person we’ve seen in the league (or any other’s I’ve played in) to be using a different colour rubber, lime green in Ben’s case – in case anyone’s not aware of the rule change, you can now have one of five or six colours on one side as long as the other is black.

 Xavier came close to getting a leg losing 8, deuce, and deuce against Johnny. 

Runners up remains on target with the table showing us three points behind Morpeth with a game in hand and twelve points behind Nat West with two games in hand – of course simply playing the matches will get us three points each time so sets needed are reduced accordingly. 

I’ve also attached another post match photo from the Speaker, l to r: 

Pete Harris, Johnny Bispham, Chris Herbert, Jason Killip, Duncan Brown, Matt Robertson, and Adam Alnak.