This week , as we entered the last third of the season , the Sandgrounders made the trip to the Pirates of Poolstock and the Hey Jude Arena.

The venue , one of our favourites , is less Gilbert and Sullivan , more Gilbert O'Sullivan - think Peter Kay and The Pheonix Nights and you are almost there.

Facing the Sandgrounders were the regular threesome , the boy band that is Brian Cantlie , Carl Murphy and Keith Dootson. Louis Tomlinson was going to turn up to play doubles but he was still in a huff after the questions on BBC Breakfast that morning.

For the Sandgrounders we had Captain Nick Foss , Uncle Ray Hibbs and the lesser spotted Josh Taylor.

A great night's TT and entertainment ensued but perhaps not enough points were accrued for the Sandgrounders in their pursuit of the title.

Josh who started the evening bereft of confidence and playing hesitantly was , to his suprise , the team's stand out performer . He got progesssively better throughout the evening beating Keith , Carl and in the final game of top quality Brian , taking the POM award in the process. By the end of the night his form had returned and he was playing with confidence and flair.

On the other hand Captain Nick had a mare. He threw away a 2-0 lead against Brian to lost deuce in the 5th , a 1-0 lead against Carl to lose 3-1 and only partly redeemed himself with a 3-0 defeat of Keith.

Uncle Ray beat Keith and Carl but lost to Brian.

Ray and Josh teamed up to beat Brian and Keith in the doubles.

The possible highlight of the evening was larger than life Keith's one liner when Uncle Ray went up on the stage to retreive the ball ......" I remember when we used to have strippers up there on a Sunday afternoon !".... good job Chris Foley was unavailable for this one.