Divisional Trophy Gets Underway

The respective Divisional Trophy Handicap matches got underway this week with some terrific hard fought battles throughout all the divisions.
The teams in each division were split into two groups with the winners of each group going through to the final.
The David Hooton Trophy for Division One sides got underway with league leaders Worksop Miners Welfare facing a tricky looking game away at Stanley Street in Group A and with the Stanley Street side starting with an 88 point lead due the handicap system which is based on each players individual average, they were going to have to be on top form to secure a victory.
Terry Emmerson got Stanley Street off to a great start by beating Chris Cattell 21-15, 21-16 to increase his sides lead even further which left the Miners Welfare side with an uphill battle. Over the next six games Welfare started to claw points back as Phil Walton beat Pete Eyre before teaming up in the first of the doubles games with Richard Element to beat Emmerson and Mark Sansom, Element then clawed back 22 points against Eyre in the next singles game and it really did look like they were going to make a real fist of it. Cattell then beat Sansom by 7 points and then joined forces with Walton to beat Sansom and Eyre in the second doubles rubber with Element taking 9 points from Emmerson to leave the Welfare side just 29 points behind.
Sansom then upset the odds by beating Walton 21-12, 21-16 to secure the win for Stanley Street with one game still to play with the final score being 439 points to 396 to the Stanley Street side.
The only other match that was played this week was in Group B between Clowne ‘A’ and Sparken Hill Woodpeckers which saw the Clowne side start 58 points adrift due to the handicapping but it wasn’t long before they had clawed 47 points back after the first three games with wins for Joe Zygadlo and Steve Lyon in the singles and Zygadlo and Roy Bowes in the first of the three doubles games. Steve Lyon then took 7 points from Orestas Riauba and Bowes took 17 points from Mitchell Radford which put Clowne ‘A’ 13 points in the lead, a lead that they kept throughout the match. Lyon and Bowes extended the lead even further by beating Radford and Martynas Riauba by 22 points and when Zygadlo defeated Orestas Riauba in the next singles game it was virtually all over bar the shouting.
Bowes beat Martynas Riauba 21-14, 21-14 to rub salt in the Woodpeckers wounds with Zygadlo and Lyon just beating the Riauba brothers by a single point in the last game of the night to give Clowne ‘A’ the win by 435 points to 388.

Into Division Two which is The Reg Wilcox Trophy and Group ‘A’ got off to a great start with two close games that could have gone either way. Carlton X-Youth had a narrow victory over Manton Sports, managing to win by just 9 points! The X-Youth side of Simon Hooley, Mark Bloomer and Mark Cooper started a 100 points behind the Sports side which consisted of John Lowde, Steve Dix and Keith Smith but stuck to their task gamely and scored 369 points on the table to add to their 75 handicap points whilst Manton Sports could only muster up 260 and when added to their 175 handicap points saw them fall just short and losing 444 points to 435.
The other match in Group A saw Manton Tigers and Worksop Welfare Harriers ‘B’ have an even closer game with the winners winning by just 8 points!
The Tigers trio of Dave Bowns, Ron Firth and Bill Bateman scored 369 points on the table with another 94 points being added for the handicap giving them a total of 463 with the Harriers ‘B’ side scoring 194 to add to their 262 giving them a final total of 456 and missing out by just 8 points.
Group ‘B’ saw the top two teams in Division Two meet with Sparken Hill Eagles starting with a 42 point lead over league leaders Clowne ‘C’, a lead that they saw disappear fairly quickly. The Clowne side of Rob Vaughan, Ben Crapper and Perry Bradford clawed 36 points back in the first two games leaving them just 6 points adrift and although the Eagles trio of Keith Swift, Chris Tilstone and John Hallgarth stretched it briefly by another 3 points that was to be the last of their successes and they ended by 424 points to 379.
Division Three MBE Trophy Results: Group A Sparken Hill Blue Jays 462 Worksop Welfare Real Deal 478, Sparken Hill Hawks 415 Worksop Welfare Harriers C 425. Group B No Results In.
Mike Tunningley Handicap Shield Result: Sparken Hill Robins 341 Sparken Hill Blue Jays 341 (Replay required)