Stanley Street Keep Pressure On Leaders
Second placed Stanley Street kept the pressure on league leaders Worksop Miners Welfare in Division One this week with a 6-4 win over bottom side Sparken Hill Starlings. With the Welfare side having no game this week due to a postponement, Stanley Street took full advantage and narrowed the gap at the top to just 3 points despite not fielding their strongest possible team. No Pete Eyre or Alex Millward this week, instead in came Mark Sansom and Dave Hodgkin to join Terry Emmerson for the Stanley Street outfit. Emmerson won his usual 3 singles matches to make it 17 out of 17 wins so far this season. He was well supported by Sansom who registered wins over both Andy Kirkland and Ivan Guilliatt before losing to Andy Lee in straight sets. Emmerson and Sansom then teamed up in the doubles to beat Lee and Guilliatt to complete the scoring for Stanley Street.
The only other match to be played in Division One this week was between Clowne ‘B’ and Sparken Hill Woodpeckers with Clowne ‘B’ coming out on top in a tight contest despite the Man Of The Match performance coming from a player from the opposition. The Woodpeckers Orestas Riauba had a great match as he defeated all three Clowne players in Jeff Reay, Kalpesh Bhatt and Simon Chatterton. Uncharacteristically his brother Martynas had a bit of a stinker of a night losing all his three games and it was left up to Mitchell Radford to try and salvage a point for his side. Radford managed to beat Jeff Reay but lost out to both Chatterton and Bhatt before joining Orestas Riauba in the doubles and despite going 2-1 up against Chatterton and Bhatt, they couldn’t see the contest out and lost in the deciding set. The 6-4 win for Clowne ‘B’ moved them up into 3rd place in Division One but sides below them do have games in hand.
In Division Two Clowne ‘C’ won their game in hand over Sparken Hill Eagles to move three points clear at the top of the division. In a very tight match against Worksop Welfare Harriers ‘A’ that could easily have ended in a draw, Clowne ‘C’ managed to come away with a 7-3 win thanks to a Rob Vaughan hat-trick, 2 from Ben Crapper and 1 from Perry Bradford with Vaughan and Crapper taking a hard fought doubles against Dilip Malkan and Tony Draycott.
Both Manton sides enjoyed wins this week with Manton Tigers beating Carlton X-Youth 9-1 with hat-tricks for both Dave Bowns and Bill Bateman and a double for Ron Firth who lost to Mark Bloomer. Manton Sports defeated Worksop Welfare Harriers ‘B’ thanks to hat-tricks for both Man Of The Match Keith Smith and Aland Wilson with John Lowde adding 2 wins of his own before losing to Dan Saul.
The leaders in Division Three won again this week with Lewis Linacre winning his 18th singles win in a row to help Sparken Hill Hawks to an 8-2 victory over Worksop Welfare Harriers ‘C’. Adam Pinches also registered a hat-trick of singles wins with Paul Wendon adding a solo win over Cliff Briggs.
Second placed Sparken Hill Falcons beat third placed Sparken Hill Blue Jays 7-3 to maintain the pressure on the league leaders. There were 2 wins each for Luke Barraclough, Neil Penny and Mick Potter, each of them losing out to Kathy McIntyre who took the Player Of The Match accolade but it wasn’t enough to sop the Blue Jays slipping to defeat.
Sparken Hill Nightingales enjoyed an 8-2 win over their club colleagues the Pigeons with both Charlie Shephard and Harrison Holland both winning all their three singles games with Mark Fisher winning two before losing out to the ever improving Zak Berridge.
The final match in Division Two this week saw Worksop Welfare Real Deal defeat 2 man Sparken Hill Robins 7-3. Tom Ogley and Jerry Collins both beat Keith Bloomfield and Reece Carnall but Real Deal’s 3rd player Michael Candy couldn’t match their endeavours losing to both players.