Stanley Street 'A' Drag Joggers Into The Relegation Battle

Stanley Street 'A' did themselves and the teams around them a huge favour this week by beating DTH Redlands Joggers and by doing so they have now dragged the Joggers into the relegation dog fight. Although Street 'A' still remain in the bottom two they have closed the gap with the teams immediately above them and only two points now separate themselves and the four teams above them. With Manton Tigers rooted to the bottom with no points it now seems that the last relegation place will be between five other teams. Street 'A' s Peter Eyre did the most damage against The Joggers as he chalked up a comfortable hat trick beating all three Joggers players in Lea Dickinson, Matthew Mudd and Lewis Comley in straight sets. Eyre was well supported by Kyle McIntosh who had 5 set wins over both Mudd and Comley with Dave Hodgkin adding another win in defeating Comley. Lea Dickinson continued her fine form by beating both Hodgkin and McIntosh with Mudd adding a single win with a very good victory over Hodgkin. Joggers also took the doubles rubber but it wasn't enough to stop them slipping to a 6-4 defeat.
Elsewhere in the battle to avoid the drop 2 man Manton Misfits managed to grab an unlikely looking draw against another of the sides around them in Ryton Park Adders. For the Misfits both Kalpesh Bhatt and Malcolm Manuel each won two sets each and then teamed up to snatch the doubles in a 5 set thriller played at the end of the match to grab a share of the spoils.
The Adders Andy Lee continued his resurgence in form by beating both Bhatt and Manuel but neither of his team mates Matt Lemon and Gary Sides could match him leaving the scores all square at the end of the night.
Division Two continues to be tight with many close matches which despite the score lines could have actually gone either way. One such match this week was between league leaders Manton Nomads and DTH Redlands X-Youth. The match was due to be played at Redlands but with the school shut for half term it was played at Manton Miners Welfare instead with Manton taking full advantage of having home advantage. Nomads Steve Elkin was in fine form as he took all three X-Youth scalps of Clive Eden, Jeff Reay and Ewan Pickersgill and when Rob Vaughan also defeated Pickersgill and Eden it set the Nomads well on their way to victory. Jayden Budworth added a solo win over Pickersgill to finally get the Nomads over the finishing line to clinch all three points and the 7-3 win was cemented when Elkin and Vaughan took the doubles set against Eden and Reay.
Stanley Street 'C' are showing some good form this season and had a convincing 9-1 win over DTH Redlands Rookies with both Paul Linfield and Daniel Cutts both registering hat tricks with Andy Kirkland adding two more wins. The only success on the night for the Rookies was when Derek Piper beat Kirkland in straight sets with his team mates Alan Brown and Dave Cowburn gong home empty handed. Street 'C' added the doubles rubber in straight sets to add the icing on the cake to a very solid win.
Another Stanley Street team having a good season are Stanley Street 'B' who chalked up the narrowest of victories over Manton Sports thanks to hat tricks from both the unbeaten Nigel Stent and Adam Hamilton with Hamilton's hat trick the more remarkable as all his wins came in 5 sets!
Street 'B's third player Glynn Payne fought hard all night but couldn't quite get himself on the score sheet despite a 5 set thriller with Sport's John Lowde and he also lost out to Keith Smith and Alan Wilson. Sports did manage to take the doubles match as Lowde and Smith overcame Stent and Rodda in yet another 5 set match to leave the overall match score 6-4 in favour of Stanley Street 'B'.
There was only one match to report on this week due to postponements and scorecards not yet received and what a match it was! Stanley Street Rascals who had started the season on fire winning six out of six league games and sat proudly at the top of the league table came up against club colleagues Stanley Street Cypriots and an inform Graham Stent. Stent battled his way to a tremendous hat trick of wins over all three Rascals players in Harry Downing, Ellis Spacey and Thomas Gladwin. Stent was well backed up by Mitchell Radford who beat both Spacey and Gladwin before losing out to Downing 16-14 in the fifth set decider which all left the match score at 5-4 to the Cypriots before the doubles rubber. Radford and Stent paired up to take on Downing and Gladwin and when Downing and Gladwin went into a 2-1 lead it looked like they would at least retain their unbeaten record but Radford and Stent hit back to take the next two and take the all important doubles set to seal a fabulous 6-4 win against the league leaders.
Special mention must also go to the Cypriot's Harvey Renshaw who in his first ever season of table tennis is improving match by match and managed to take a game off of Spacey and if his improvement continues his first ever win is surely just around the corner.