Vultures Maintain 100% Record
Sparken Hill Vultures continued their perfect start to their Division Two league campaign with a 10-0 thumping of Stanley Street ‘B’. The Vultures trio of Steve Elkin, Ben Crapper and James Wormwell had too much for their opponents which reflected on the scorecard with only one match going to a deciding set which was the doubles match which included Street’s best player Mark Sansom but as he only played in the doubles and not the singles it gave the Ospreys a much easier night than they had expected and their victory now leaves them 3 points clear of their rivals at the top of the Division Two table with a game in hand on some of them.
One such rival team are Manton Sports who like the Vultures had won 3 games out of 3 before this week but they didn’t play their strongest team against their club colleagues Manton Tigers and were made to pay for it. Both Bill Bateman and Dave Bowns hit top form to register a hat trick of wins each over the Sports team of John Lowde, Alan Wilson and Richard Robinson with Steve Beeston getting in on the act with a solo win over Alan Wilson before teaming up with Bill Bateman to defeat Lowde and Wilson in the doubles rubber. Although the score line of 8-2 to the Tigers looks a little one sided, Tigers won 3 out of the 4 matches that went to a deciding set and on another night, it could easily have ended up a 5-5 draw.
Hot on the heels of the Vultures are two sides who both enjoyed big wins this week to keep the pressure on the league leaders. Worksop Welfare Harriers ‘A’ moved up into 2nd place in the table with a 10-0 thrashing of bottom side Sparken Hill Blue Jays for whom the season looks like it’s going to be a very long one! All three Harriers in George Makrakis, Farhad Saiepour and Mitchell Radford were relatively untroubled throughout the night and all registered hat trick with only Radford looking in any trouble when he went to a deciding set against Ivan Stallworthy. The doubles match followed the same pattern as most as nearly all the singles matches with Radford and Saiepour beating Stallworthy and Dave Lee in straight sets.
Worksop Welfare Snipers moved into 3rd place in the table with an 8-2 win over Sparken Hill Eagles and after this performance will still have a say in where the league title goes this season. Erlands Skels and Tony Swain played well to win all their three singles matches with Swains match against Brian Allen being the stand out match of the night as not only did it go right down to the wire in a deciding set but also included a marathon game as Swain beat Allen 22-20 in the 2nd game to level at 1-1! Snipers 3rd player was Nigel Stent who beat both John Hallgarth and Mark Fisher but lost out to Brian Allen which was the Eagles only singles success on the night but they did win the doubles when Hallgarth and Allen beat Skels and Swain.
After last week’s defeats both DTH Redlands Roosters and Fluffy Toys got back to winning ways. The Roosters enjoyed a comfortable win over bottom side DTH Redlands X-Youth although X-Youth did take the lead when Jeff Reay beat Dave Gascoyne in the first singles game of the night. Keiran Tutter also beat Gascoyne but that was to be their only joy after both Tom McIntosh and Rick Harris both recorded a hat trick of wins each and then came together to win the doubles which took them to an 8-2 victory. The Fluffy Toys had a slightly more uncomfortable night as after Steve Walker had beaten Kyle McIntosh who was playing up from Division Two he then had to retire through injury before his team mates finally dispatched Sparken Hill Starlings 7-3. Sarah Short had a good night for the Toys beating all three Starlings with Farrell Anthony adding two wins losing out to Andy Lee which apart from the two games Walker had to concede was the only other game won for the Starlings in a 7-3 defeat.
Other Division One Results: Sparken Hill Buzzards 7 Stanley Street ‘A’ 3, Sparken Hill Ospreys 3 Worksop Miners Welfare 7.
Division Three Results: Sparken Hill Hawks 2 Worksop Harriers ‘B’ 8, DTH Redlands Tarr Babies 8 The Real Deal 2, DTH Redlands Demolition Men 9 DTH Redlands Red Devils 1, Worksop Owls 1 Sparken Hill Falcons 9.