Two weeks after the commencement of the new British Clubs Leagues season it was the turn of the veterans when Cippenham’s three teams made their way to Derby for the weekend. It turned out to be an excellent first weekend for the men’s first team but the second men’s team and the women’s team fared less well.

 

Due to availability issues the men’s first team were forced to recruit a reinforcement at short notice and this came in the form of Steven Gray, a player from Cambridgeshire, who exceeded expectations to win six of his ten matches. Pride of place, however, goes to Robert Hansell who shone through to remain unbeaten across the entire weekend and was the driving force behind the overall second place at the halfway stage in Division 1A, his team finishing just a single point behind the leaders.

 

Things started nervously against Yorkshire’s Stocksbridge with team captain Martin Adams losing out to Michael Stead and Robert having to save a match point against Richard Smith at 0-2 and 9-10. However, he passed this particular test with flying colours. Steven, on debut, dispensed of Dave Charlton and Martin followed up with victory over Smith. Rob then secured a 3-0 win over over Charlton and the match finished with a 4-2 in Cippenham’s favour.

 

Things got even better in the team’s second match against Foresters B as, despite Martin losing out to Peter Stahlman, but making up for it by overturning Stuart MacIntyre, Rob and Steven won two apiece as Cippenham completed an impressive 5-1 win.

 

Even highly-rated Darren Griffin alongside Dave Hadley, representing Phoenix Nailsworth, could not stop Rob. Unfortunately Martin could not add to the team’s tally but Steven managed a fine victory over tricky opponent Liwu Wei to earn Cippenham a 3-3 draw.

 

The best result came on Sunday morning where top-placed Custom Deighton’s squad of Jason Thompson, Lee Horton and Simon Pugh could not stop Cippenham’s trio running away to a spectacular 6-0 victory. Rob earned his fourth consecutive player of the match award as his unbeaten run continued against Thompson and Pugh.

 

With an opportunity to go to the top spot, things ended disappointingly in the final match against PPong Jarek TT. Despite Rob extending his one-hundred-percent record with victories over Pawel Orzechowski and Jarek Chrzanowski, his teammates were unable to gain that crucial extra point or two and the match ended in a 2-4 defeat.

 

The men’s second team found themselves unexpectedly elevated to Division 2A despite having finished the previous season only third in Division 3. What was obviously a tough assignment proved to be exactly that with Cippenham losing all five of their matches. Paradoxically, Cippenham’s best two showings came against the top two teams in the division, Cutnall Green and Wenson, to whom Cippenham lost 4-2.

 

Against Wensum, all three Cippenham players, Samson Bekele, Hari Gehlot and Maciej Dlugozima, lost narrowly in the deciding game of one of their matches while, against Cutnall Green, Hari lost out to Phil Snelson 11-13 in the fifth game while Steve Joel picked up the player of the match award for a brace despite finishing on the losing side.

 

The other three matches, against Foresters C, Newton Abbot and Topspin Fusion 2, were all lost 1-5 although the Cippenham players did enjoy the privilege of competing against  the 1980 European Men’s Singles champion when John Hilton turned out for Foresters against them.

 

The women’s team, operating in Division 2 of their competition, drew two matches but lost the other three. The 3-3 draws came against Billwood and Irish Colleens while Ashford and Foresters 3 both beat Cippenham 4-2 and Ellenborough 2 were successful 5-1. Denise Weller was the pick of the Cippenham players with five wins from her nine matches while Mary Heffernan won three out of ten and Julie Dean one out of nine.