Buzzards Take Trophy By Narrowest Of Margins

In the Divisional Final for Division One teams, Sparken Hill Buzzards took the David Hooton Handicap Trophy by the smallest possible margins against Worksop Miners Welfare. Before a ball had been hit the handicaps were worked out and it was the Welfare side who were to start with a lead, but it was only a slender advantage of just 3 points. In the first game Richard Element beat Terry Emmerson by 18 points to extend the Welfare sides lead to 21 but the Buzzards hit back in the next two games as Kartik Lakhani beat Dave Marsh and the teamed up with Chris Cattell in the first doubles game to beat Element and Mick Bell to reduce the deficit. Cattell then had a comfortable win over Marsh who was just coming back from injury and when Emmerson beat Bell and Lakhani and Emmerson defeated Marsh and Bell in the second doubles game it looked like the Buzzards would coast to victory. In the next game Element won the first against Cattell 21-19 after coming back from being 18-14 down and in the second he gave played superbly to beat Cattell 21-5 to claw his side back into the match.
Lakhani beat Bell by just a single point in the penultimate game of the night and so it all came down to the last doubles game to decide the outcome. Element and Marsh took the first 21-9 to give Worksop Welfare a great chance of taking the Trophy and if they could win the second game and drop no more than 18 points then they would win the match. In a tight game Element and Marsh had the edge all the way through but Cattell and Emmerson were not to be denied and although hey lost it 21-20 it meant that they had done just enough to win the match for the Buzzards by a solitary point. Final score, Buzzards 461, Welfare 460.
In the Final of the Reg Wilcox Handicap Trophy which is for Division Two sides, Worksop Welfare Harriers ‘A’ were up against Worksop Welfare Snipers who would start the match 71 points behind their opponents and the large deficit would prove a bridge too far for the Snipers in the end. The Snipers battled hard and won most of the games, but they didn’t win them by a big enough margin to make significant inroads into the Harriers Lead. Tony Swain beat George Makrakis by 6 points in the first game, but Jim Westwood then lost to Mitchell Radford in the second by 8. Westwood and Ben Swain beat Makrakis and Kay Wilson in the first doubles game 42-31 with Ben Swain then defeating Radford by 4 points in the next singles game. Tony Swain then beat Wilson by 20 points to give the Snipers hope but in the next doubles game Tony Swain and Westwood could only beat Wilson and Radford by just 4 points and when Makrakis beat Ben Swain by 15 points the writing was on the wall for the Snipers. Despite Westwood beating Wilson 36-32 in the next singles game which was the penultimate game of the night it wasn’t enough, and the Harriers had won the match without having to play the last game of the night which the Snipers conceded meaning that the Harriers won by 481 points to 394.
The final of the MBE Handicap Trophy for Division Three sides was between two sides from Sparken Hill, the Falcons and the Hawks with the Falcons going for a league and cup double. As the Hawks finished mid-table and the Falcons as Champions it meant that the Hawks would start with a significant lead of 106 points. If the Falcons thought they would start to immediately eat away at the deficit then they were in for a rude awakening as Paul Wendon beat Mick Potter in the opening game to increase the Hawks lead by another 10 points but the Falcons got into their stride when  Luke Barraclough beat Tom Wendon by 7 points but the Hawks pegged them back again when Paul Wendon and Lee Banton defeated Barraclough and Neil Penny in the doubles by 2 points. The Falcons then got back to the job in hand when Penny defeated Tom Wendon 42-17 and Potter beat Banton 42-25 and when Potter and Barraclough beat Tom Wendon and Banton 42-20 it looked like it might just be the Falcons night. The next singles game proved to be crucial as Penny could only take 2 points off of Paul Wendon when the Hawks really needed more and so it proved to be as Barraclough beat Banton by 23 points and in the last match of the night Penny and Potter beat the Wendon’s by just 2 points which wasn’t enough with the Hawks winning a great game by 20 points with a final score of 448 to 428.