Nomads Dump Misfits Out Of David Hooton Trophy

League affairs took a back seat this week as the Divisional Handicap Trophy's took centre stage with some terrific matches across all three divisions. In the David Hooton Trophy which is for Division One teams there was a local derby as Manton Nomads entertained their club colleagues Manton Misfits. The Misfits currently find themselves rooted to the bottom of Division One and if they were hoping for better fortunes in the Cup then their hope was short lived as the Nomads soon started to eat away at the107 point lead that the Misfits had been given through the handicap system. Chris Cattell, Ian Henderson and Kartik Lakhani all played well for the Nomads and in only one of the 9 games in the match did the Nomads not manage to outscore their opponents when Henderson and Lakhani lost out to Malcolm Manuel and Steve Elkin in one of the doubles matches. The outcome of the match went right down to the wire and going into the last game of the night the Nomads pairing of Cattell and Henderson knew they had to beat Manuel and Steve Lyon by 11 points over the 2 sets and they did more than enough winning by 17 points 21-13, 21-12 to eventually run out winners by 525 points to 518.
Another local derby saw DTH Redlands Roosters up against DTH Redlands Monsters with the Monsters doing more than enough to win the match by 41 points. The Riauba brothers all had a good night with both Orestas and Martynas both notching up impressive wins with Orestas beating Clive Mitchell 41-37 over the 2 games and Martynas beating Rick Harris 40-29 which helped the  Monsters achieve a 384-343 victory.
The current holders of the David Hooton Trophy made it through to the semi-finals with a great win over Worksop Miners Welfare 'A' despite the Welfare trio only dropping points in one of the 9 games when the ever improving Jack Kirkland had a fine win over Mick Bell. Kirkland's team mate also contributed vital points to their sides total which saw them amass 270 points on the table which when added to their handicap points gave them a total of 444 points which proved to be too many for the Welfare 'A' side going down by 444 points to 406.
In the Reg Wilcox Trophy which is solely for Division Two sides two teams from Redlands safely navigated their way through to the semi-final stages of the competition. DTH Redlands X-Youth had a narrow 9 point win over their club colleagues the Joggers with the X-Youth trio of Clive Eden, Jeff Reay and Mark Bloomer having just a little too much firepower for their opponents and registering a 409 points to 400 victory.
Another Redlands team to taste victory were the Rookies who just squeezed past Worksop Welfare Snipers 'C' with the Snipers side being right on track to defeat the Rookies up until the 8th game of the night when Derek Piper managed to beat Ralph Rodda 42-36 over the two games. Piper's win proved pivotal to the outcome of the match as if the score would have been the other way round then the Snipers would have just edged the contest, instead the Rookies enjoyed a narrow win by 525 points to 515.
One of the biggest wins of all of the Divisional Trophy matches came when Worksop Welfare Snipers 'B' beat Manton Sports by 500 points to 361 but what looked like a big win on paper wasn't a true reflection of the proceedings as the Sports Keith Smith got injured in his first game of the night which meant he was unable to take part in any of the three remaining games that he would have featured in and subsequently the Snipers 'B' side won all three 42-0 which meant that defeat was inevitable for the Sports trio of Smith, John Lowde and James Weston.
The remaining quarter final was a was conceded by Real North Notts 'A' to Manton Tigers.
None of the MBE trophy quarter finals for Division Three sides were as close as the other two divisional cups with wins for Worksop Owls over Sparken Hill Blue Jays by 457 to 422, Worksop Welfare Cypriots 'A' defeated Sparken Hill Falcons 417-380 and Worksop Welfare Cypriots 'B' beating Real North Notts 514 to 462.
Division One Results: Sparken Hill Starlings 5 Manton Misfits 5.