It’s Neck And Neck At Top Of Two

As the new league season starts to take shape the early front runners in Division Two cannot be separated as they have both won their opening two games and have an identical set difference. Manton Sports and Stanley Street ‘B’ are locked together at the top of the table and both enjoyed wins this week but with rather different levels of ease.
Stanley Street ‘B’ eased to a very comfortable 10-0 win over DTH Redlands Rookies with hat tricks all round for Mark Sansom, Ralph Rodda and Andy Kirkland with Sansom and Chris Tilstone adding the doubles to complete the whitewash over a Rookies side that included Elliott Jordan, Chris Clemson and Perry Bradford who was playing up from Division Three.
Whilst Stanley Street were easing past Redlands Rookies it was a different story for Manton Sports as they just managed to squeeze past Worksop Welfare Harriers ‘A’ by the narrowest of margins with a 6-4 win, a win that they largely had James Weston to thank for as he not only won all of his three singles games but also had a hand in the doubles win as well. Assisting Weston in his efforts were John Lowde and Keith Smith who both managed a single win each over Kay Wilson but both losing to Farhad Saiepour and George Makrakis.
Worksop Welfare Snipers who had a blank week in the first week of league fixtures kicked off their season with an impressive 9-1 win over Manton Tigers who didn’t help their own cause by only being able to field 2 players and have now lost both of their opening matches to find themselves languishing at the wrong end of the table. Nigel Stent and Pete Hodgson both had little difficulty in beating Dave Bowns and Phil Hall but teammate Ben Swain lost in straight sets to Bowns before returning the favour to Phil Hall beating him 3-0. Stent and Hodgson then teamed up to take the doubles to complete the victory.
Another Division Two side getting their first win of the season this week were Sparken Hill Eagles who beat club colleagues The Blue Jays 8-2 with only Connor Bettley being able to deny the Eagles a 10-0 win as he beat both Mark Fisher and Keith Swift but was unable to repeat the feat against John Hallgarth who won all his three singles games.
The top of Division One has a familiar look to it as both DTH Redlands Fluffy Toys and defending champions Redlands Roosters occupy the top two places in the table and both enjoying 7-3 wins this week. Fluffy Toys came up against another fancied side in Worksop Miners Welfare but Welfare could only muster up two players which made what was already a difficult night ahead into an almost impossible one. Both Sarah Short and Steve Walker each beat the two Welfare players in Mark Stanfield and Dave Marsh but there was some joy for the Welfare side as they both beat Farrell Anthony and then teamed up to take the doubles game defeating Anthony and Short but were left to ponder on what could have been if they had fielded their strongest player in Richard Element.
The Roosters 7-3 win came against Stanley Street ‘A’ with Worksop Masters Champion Ernest Mpundu and Runner Up Tom McIntosh both securing hat tricks for the Roosters to set their team up for victory and then took the doubles set beating Peter Eyre and Jack Kirkland. The Street ‘A’ side did enjoy some success as Eyre, Kirkland and Alex Millward all defeated Dave Gascoyne.
Other Division One Results: DTH Redlands X-Youth 2 Sparken Hill Buzzards 8, DTH Redlands Monsters 10 Sparken Hill Ospreys 0
Division Three Results: Worksop Owls 1 DTH Redlands Tarr Babies 9, Sparken Hill Falcons 10 Sparken Hill Hawks 0