Stanley Street 'C' Climb To The Top Of Division Three

A hard fought win against club colleagues Stanley Street Cypriots helped Stanley Street 'C' leap frog their rivals in the title race to go to the top of Division Three whilst maintaining their unbeaten start to the season. When the Cypriots turned up with only two players Stanley Street 'C' could have been forgiven in thinking that they were in for a comfortable night but a comfortable night is far from what they got as the Cypriot's Adam Hamilton turned up with along with his top form to very nearly snatch his side an unlikely point. On a night of that saw some great table tennis it was also a night that also saw Andy Kirkland lose his 100% record as Hamilton beat him in a 5 set thriller, he also took  5 sets to beat Glyn Williams whilst sweeping aside Alan McGinlay in straight sets. Tom Parker also beat McGinlay to leave the overall match score at 5-4 to Stanley Street 'C' and to leave the outcome of the match hinging on the doubles rubber. Hamilton and Parker were up against Kirkland and Louis Spray but try as they may they just couldn't manage to quite do enough to win the doubles and valiantly went down 6-4.
Division Two continues to fascinate with teams all beating each other and any side that puts a decent winning run together can get themselves right in the hunt for the title. One such side hoping to do just that are Global Marble 'B' who were up against Manton Sports this week and with Sports not fielding their strongest line up it allowed Global to ease to a 10-0 whitewash. There were hat tricks all round for Richard Robinson, Steve Elkin and Dilip Malkan with little resistance from the Sports trio of Phil Fisher, John McClellan and Keith Smith with Elkin and Robinson comfortably adding the doubles to the sets for column after defeating Fisher and McClellan to conclude an emphatic win.
The roller coaster that is Manton Tigers title aspirations continued to be up and down this week as they won one and lost one inside a week but still found themselves sat on the top of Division Two. In their first match against DTH Redlands X-Youth Mr Maximum Paul Allison continued his unbeaten start to the season with a fine hat trick and not to be outdone by his team mate, Dave Bowns also won all his three games which in hindsight was a good job he did as the third Tigers player Steve Beeston managed to lose all three of his games. All the three X-Youth players Jeff Reay, Clive Eden and Matt Turner beet Beeston before Beeston teamed up with Allison to claim the doubles and with it a 7-3 win. Their next match against Ryton Park Eagles was a little different with Dave Bowns losing ALL three of his games as did his team mate Phil Hall with Bill Bateman sparing their blushes with an impressive hat trick whilst also adding the doubles set with Hall to narrowly lose out 6-4 on the night. John Hallgarth, Keith Swift and Alex Olliffe all won two games each for the Eagles to ensure that the Eagles went home with all three points.
One team this week did their title hopes no harm were DTH Redlands Joggers who also beat X-Youth in a cracking game that was a lot closer that the 8-2 score line suggests with many of the games going to 4 and 5 sets. However, maximums for both Lea Dickinson and Dennis Learad were the backbone of the Joggers victory with Matthew Mudd adding a solo win over Matt Turner before losing out to both Clive Eden and Mark Bloomer who also teamed up in the doubles but couldn't quite beat Learad and Mudd in what turned out to be a 5 set close encounter.
All the results in Division Two now mean that Manton Tigers stay top on sets won from the Joggers with Stanley Street 'B' a further point behind but with a game in hand.
Division One Result: Ryton Park Adders 1 DTH Redlands Fluffy Toys 9