Nightingales Win Mike Tunningley Shield

Sparken Hill Nightingales pulled off a great victory against DTH Redlands Rovers to take the Mike Tunningley Handicap Shield for the first time. The Nightingales trio of Harrison Holland, Charlie Shepherd and Isabella Saul knew that they would not score as many points as their more illustrious opponents, so they fought for every point all the way through the match to give themselves a chance of victory. They did have some small victories in their tussles with their opponents as Holland and Shepherd both took a game off of Roman Rosser whilst the Rovers other Keith Bloomfield remained unbeaten all night and returned the maximum amount of points possible in this format of the game.
At the end of the 9 singles matches the Nightingales had managed to amass 211 points whilst the Rovers managed 369 points so both sides knew that if the Nightingales were awarded more than a 158 handicap points then it would be the Nightingales that went home with the trophy. When the sealed envelope was opened at the end of the match it revealed that the Nightingales had been awarded 180 handicap points to add to their total which gave them victory by just 22 points winning 391 points to 369.
The Divisional Trophy finals were also played this week and all three finals were played in a great spirit and a fabulous advert for table tennis in Worksop.
The final of the David Hooton Handicap Trophy which is for Division One sides was between Stanley Street ‘A’ and Worksop Welfare Snipers ‘A’ always looked like it could be a close affair and a close affair it turned out to be. The Snipers started the match with 84 more handicap points than their opponents, so Stanley Street ‘A’ knew that they would have to play well to claw the points back and the trio of Peter Eyre, Alex Millward and Terry Emmerson set about their task with some vigour and had pulled back 47 points by the end of the third match. In the fourth game Pete Hodgson beat Peter Eyre 41- 32 to reverse the trend and with his teammates Erlands Skels and Russ Webster chipping in with vital points it gave them hope of clinging on to their lead. As both teams went into the last doubles game of the night there was one point between them with Stanley Street ‘A’ leading by 450 points to 449. Stanley Street’s Terry Emmerson and Peter Eyre proved to be too strong for their double’s opponents in Hodgson and Skels and won the last two games of the night by 42 points to 25 to secure overall victory by 492 points to 474.
Another Stanley Street team looking for Divisional Trophy success were Stanley Street ‘B’ who were up against Carlton X-Youth in the final of the Reg Wilcox Handicap Trophy. Stanley Street ‘B’ won every game on aggregate on the night but still ended up losing the contest. Mark Sansom, Dave Hodgkin and Andy Kirkland may have won every game but what their opponents did very effectively is make sure that they didn’t win every game by a huge deficit which was the key to their success. Mark Bloomer, Mark Cooper and Shaun Layden started out 145 points ahead after both sides handicap points were added and all three players played well to score vital points to enable them to keep their noses in front which proved vital in the end as they ran out winners by 489 points to 463.
DTH Redlands Rookies were looking to add the MBE Handicap Trophy for Division Three sides to the Division Three league title they secured a few weeks ago to return an impressive league and cup double to finish their season off in style despite having to give Sparken Hill Blue Jays a 54 point start. The Rookies had an exceptional night on the table as they won all but one of the 9 games and scored an impressive 367 points, but their opponents stuck at it and Kathy McIntyre, John McIntyre and Dave Rix can all be pleased with their performance and on another night may well have turned the result around. The Blue Jays scored 259 points on the table and with another 125 points added to their total via the handicapping ended the contest on 384 points, but it was nowhere near enough as the Rookies finished on 438 points to take the title.