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Press Report #19 The Hampshire Schools Championships took place at Waterside Table Tennis Centre in Totton on Friday 29th January. Basingstoke was well represented with Matthew Wilson, Louis Webb and Jonathan Evans all winning their groups in the U16 Boys event. Evans went on to win the event without dropping a game and will now represent Hampshire at the English Schools event in April. In the Girls events: Zoe Blagbrough did really well in her category, the U16s, but had to settle for 2nd place when she came up against England International, Tressa Armitage in the final; Holly Edwards was runner-up in the U13s; and Amy Blagbrough reached the finals of the U11s, but was sadly defeated by a more experienced player. In Division 1, KG A turned in a poor result against Minitec A, with Patrick Garlick in particular coming down to earth hard after his excellent performance against Pete Matthews last week. Steve Murgatroyd seemed to be back on form as he produced a valuable treble. The reliable Norman Swift, playing up from the B side, also added 3 to Minitec A’s haul as they won 2-8. Playing for his own side, Minitec B, against Alpha Cars, Swift would have done the same but for Alpha’s Paul Rattue who notched up another treble for his side. Minitec’s Louis Conlon added 2 points of his own and paired up with Ian Short to force home a well deserved doubles win. Alpha’s Terry White stole a point from Short in the last match of the evening, giving a final score of 6-4 to Minitec and their first win over Alpha Cars. Roger Bielby was the only KG B player to have any success against Winklebury, taking the scalp of the experienced John Golding after clawing his way back from 2 games to 1 down, to win the next 2 games in fine style. Otherwise it was plain sailing for Malcolm Cummins and Dave Wise and Winklebury finished 9-1 winners. Later in the week, as if to illustrate the gulf between St Peters A and rest of Division 1, St Peters A produced an excellent performance against Winklebury to beat them, in turn, 9-1. But Winklebury’s John Golding put his earlier defeat aside to beat Peter Matthews in a tremendous match that saw Golding drop the 3rd and 4th games after going 2 games in front to set up a nail biting decider. A local derby between Queens B and Queens A produced two unexpected results. Firstly, the A team’s Louis Webb notched up a fine win over Denise Weller and then the B team’s Pete Martin strolled to an easy 3-0 win over Tony Palaczky. The overall result was less of a surprise though, with the B team losing 3-7. In Division 2, another local derby between Queens E and Queens D looked like it could go either way at the half way stage, with the E side just nosing ahead with a 3-2 lead. However, the D team’s Celia Hooker, Bill Bavister and Nigel Cooper dug deep to win the next 4 matches by the narrowest of margins. Roy Pike clawed one point back for the E team, winning the final match of the evening against Bavister to give the D team a 4-6 victory. The match between KG E and KG C went very much to form, with the C team’s Jared Binner and Matthew Wilson both scoring a maximum to give their side a 4-6 victory. Wilson’s match against KG F captain Martyn Richards didn’t seem to be going his way as he dropped to a 2-1 deficit, but Wilson then rallied to emphatically win the next 2 games 3-11 and 0-11. Portals captain Pete Blunden scored a treble against KG D and teamed up with son John to also win the doubles. John also won a singles game against KG’s Holly Edwards as did another Blunden, Steve. KG’s Mike Wood and Dave Partridge managed to salvage 2 points apiece to give KG a 4-6 loss. The match between Oakley B and Queens C was a well matched event, with honours being equally shared between the teams. Oakley’s Ron Draper worked hard to take the first match of the evening against Frank Lii by 3 very close games to 1. Oakley’s Ian Warner was then pushed all the way by Mike Chamberlain, but held his nerve against the Chamberlain attack to win 16-14 in the decider. Steve Ng started the evening well in KG E’s match against Basingstoke Hindu Society A, easily beating Kanti Mistry. That proved to be the high point for KG though as Mistry, Paritosh Singh and Sav Thevendria took the remaining points. A two-man AWE side of Ken Wyld and John McLarty still managed to score a maximum 3-7 win as they took on a full strength Basingstoke Hindu Society B. Catch up on all the latest table tennis news in Basingstoke by visiting the league website: www.basingstokett.co.uk |
