Veterans' British League 1st Weekend

Created by Graham Trimming

an accredited ETTA EXCELLENCE PremierClub

No wins but not out of it yet

Neither Cippenham team won a match in the first weekend of the Veterans’ British League at Hereford. However, with five points between then from a total of ten matches, and both divisions being quite compressed, neither team will feel that the situation is beyond recovery next time around.

This is especially true of the men’s team playing in Division 2A. Cippenham’s number one Steve Buck was unavoidably absent and his place was taken by Christos Hannides. Steve will be back for the second half of the season and, being just one point away from 5th place and a mere two points away from 3rd place, Cippenham will feel that there is every chance of improved results in January at Doncaster.

The men’s team drew three of their five matches 3-3 and only lost the other two by the narrow margin of 4-2. Paul Baker was in inspired form and had best return since season 2002-3. Paul won six of his ten matches including two in each of the drawn matches with Pudsey and second-placed Dewsbury. Christos was the model of consistency, winning one in each match, five in total while Mike Rhodes, playing in the difficult number one position, importantly beat Graham Coupe 14-12 in the fifth in the drawn match with Blackpool and Geoff Salter 11-8 in the fifth against division leaders Border Reivers to whom Cippenham lost 4-2.

The Cippenham women’s team, after winning Division 2 in their debut season last year, found the going a bit tougher in Division 1. However, they will not feel at all out of it even though they have only two points from their five matches as the Billwood team two places ahead have only one more point and one more set to their name. Cippenham secured one of their points in the match against Billwood thanks to a great performance from Denise Weller who beat Sue Hickman comfortably 3-0 and then in the match between the number ones beat Shirley Dark 13-11 in the fifth. That put Cippenham 3-1 up but neither Sue Hayes, against Sue Body nor Julie Dean, against Hickman, could turn the fifth games their way. Julie was actually 2-0 in games in her match and then lost the third at deuce.

Julie made amends, however, in the other drawn match against Milton Keynes when she beat both Pauline Steel and Dawn Pearce. She also won both her matches in the 4-2 defeat by HEL but her team mates could not match her even though Sue was most unfortunate to lose both her matches in the deciding game. Sue won only two during the weekend but these were both memorable wins against highly rated players Marilyn Bawden and Sharon Mitchell and incredibly six of her eight defeats were 3-2 and the other two 3-1.

Link to Veterans’ British League page