WEEK 1 REPORT, PART 2 OF WINTER LEAGUE 21/22
Premier Division
Two Premier Division results to bring you from Week 1 of the 2ndPart of the 2021/22 Southend Table Tennis League season.
Firstly, a tight affair between Hadleigh Forum A and Thorpe Bay B. Thorpe Bay B ran out 5-4 winners in the main due to a hattrick from Kieran Skeggs recording wins over Dave Bassett, Hamish Innes and Berti Makoli: ably supported by Gurj Bhambra with two wins. In reply, the Forum trio all beat Amber Sturgeon and Bassett recorded a good win over Bhambra.
An equally close finish when Hockley A hosted Rawreth A. The Rawreth side just nicked this one 5-4. The score however, you feel, would have been different if there had not been an injury mid-match to Hockley star Andy Cunningham. Cunningham had already beaten Kevin Read and would have been favourite for a maximum but had to withdraw part through his game with Zayd Mauthoor and concede his final game against George ‘Ace’ Reeves. Hockley’s other three wins coming from Ian Wall (two) and Matthew Stringer (one).
Duncan Taylor Premier Division DRS
Division 1
Stanford A had to call for reinforcements from their D Team this week. Both Andrew Jessop and Saad Abdullah turned out at short notice to support regular A team player Peter Weatherall in their home match against Hadleigh Forum C. Peter was POM with a maximum, whilst Saad scored a fine victory over Satwant Gill. However, Forum came out on top, thanks to two wins each for Graham Farmer and Mark Everard. Satwant added a single.
A lack of available players was also Hockley B’s undoing. Visitors Mapledene ran out 7 – 2 winners against their two-man Hockley hosts. Steve Woodley was POM, winning all his games for Mapledene, whilst the home side’s Dave Chenery was responsible for both his team’s successes. Andy Seaman and Mike Johnston won two each for Mapledene.
Brand Identity B were too strong for visiting Hockley C. Maximums from POM Simon Jacob and David Jacob, with two more added by Mick Grout gave the hosts an 8 – 1 win. Ollie George picked up a consolation victory for Hockley.
With their premises temporarily unavailable, Hadleigh Forum Bplayed their home match against Lentern B at Lentern’s premises in Selbourne Road. The change of venue didn’t faze them though, as they ran out 5 – 4 winners in a close contest. Forum’s star man (and POM) was Mick Tappenden who seems to be having a renaissance of late. Dave Woolmer added two more wins to Mick’s hat trick. For Lentern, John Tendler, playing against his old club won one, as did Peter Lucraft. However, Paul Sims was their side’s best player coming away with two victories.
Rawreth C turned up with only 2 players against an experienced Runnymede team with Tina Hutchinson, Tony Millward and Dmitry Kisil who scored the maximum for Runnymede, followed by Tony Millward with a brace. Charlie Kauders Boothby only lost to Dmitry Kisil on the night with a great display but Runnymede prevailed 7-2.
Unfortunately, due to Covid concerns, the visit of Invicta A to Ashingdon had to be postponed and will be played at a later date.
David Barnes Division 1 DRS
Division 2
The first week of the second half saw only four games to report on. RESSC started, not surprisingly, with a 9-0 win against Customs, albeit the taxmen were only able to field two players. Bob Skews, Ron Coutts and Kevin Smart had a fairly easy evening, but Richard Kidd almost grabbed a consolation point taking Ron to five sets.
The other three matches all finished with the same 7-2 score line with Brand Identity C, Canvey B and Canvey C taking the honours.
Jenne Seibolt was POTM for Brand Identity C against Invicta Bbacked up by braces for Richard Reibold and Andy Roff. Jenne was extended to five sets by David Barnes but came back from 2-1 down to win. David picked up a point by beating Andy Roff whilst Mike Keeble stopped Richard’s hat trick ambitions winning in five sets in the last game of the night.
Daniel Kellard swept aside all before him as Canvey B beat Stanford D not dropping a set all evening. Tony Westwell and Des Duffield weighed in with two wins each but neither of them could get past Mark Downey who got both points for Stanford.
Canvey C’s win against Stanford C was a much closer affair than the score suggests with three matches going to five sets. Kevin Walsingham and Lee McGonagle both recorded hat tricks but Jo Hills found it a bit harder going down to Mark Farley and Jake Santiago. Jake could, in fact, have claimed a second win but lost in five to Lee who also took the long way home against Mark coming back from 2-1 down to win 11/8 in the fifth.
Paul Strutt Division 2 DRS
