Match Reports

Sparken Hill Falcons remain top of Division Three this week after a convincing 9-1 win over DTH Redlands Red Devils with both Mick Potter and Luke Barraclough being on top of their games with both players winning all their singles games against their opponents. Jordan Potter also contributed to his sides victory beating both Harry Clarke and Cliff Briggs before coming unstuck against Dave Lyus. The Potters then teamed up to beat Lyus and Briggs in the doubles.
The Falcons win kept them at the head of the Division by virtue of DTH Redlands Tarr Babies dropping their first points of the season as they lost to another team in with a shout of the league title in DTH Redlands Demolition Men. Bob Atkinson was the player in form for the Demolition Men as his patient play paid dividends in the end as he recorded an untroubled hat trick…full report »

Last year’s winners of the Carnation Cup both went out at the first hurdle although both Nigel Stent and Jeff Reay were paired with different partners in this year’s handicapped competition. Stents playing partner this year was Chris Tilstone and they were up against Erlands Skels and Neil Penny and Skels and Penny soon raced into a 2-0 lead when Skels defeated Tilstone and Penny beat Stent only for Stent and Tilstone to hit back by taking the doubles match. In the reverse singles Penny narrowly beat Tilstone to seal the match 3-1 with Stent beating Skels in the last game of the match to salvage some pride and to only end up losing the match by a 3-2 score line.
In his match Jeff Reay teamed up with Ted Rizzo to take on Mark Sansom and Neil Fisher and in fairness Reay and Rizzo took a bit of…full report »

DTH Redlands Monsters are starting to put the frighteners on teams at the top end of Division One with their latest victory against DTH Redlands Fluffy Toys who themselves are annual title challengers. In the Monsters ranks was Paul Johnson who was making his first start of the season and he marked the occasion with wins over Sarah Short, Farrell Anthony and then beat his brother Steve to grab the bragging rights in the Johnson house! Some may think that the Monsters only won the match due to Johnson’s exploits, but this was no ‘one man show’ as both Orestas and Valentinas Riauba got in on the act and registered a hat trick of wins each which only confirms the improvements that the Riauba brothers have made over the last few seasons. The only joy for the Toys in a 9-1 defeat came in the doubles match when Anthony and…full report »

Sparken Hill Falcons who were last year’s winners of the Mike Tunningley Shield got the defence of their title off to a winning start against club colleagues Sparken Hill Eagles. The Eagles who are in the division above the Falcons started out as probable favourites and when they won the first match of the night when Alex Olliffe defeated Mick Potter 42-15 the early signs looked promising. But the defending champions are used to the handicap points format and started to dig in and make every point count with Jordan Potter and Neil Penny contribution 85 and 81 points respectively over the course of the match and although all three Falcons players all lost to Olliffe and Brian Allen they did manage to take vital points off John Hallgarth which finally amassed to a team total of 229 points. The Eagles trio managed to score 372 out of a possible…full report »

Because of the closure of Redlands School for the fitting of new lighting this week most of the action took place in Division Two due to matches having to be cancelled but that didn’t stop there being plenty of action elsewhere. One such match was between top of the table Sparken Hill Vultures and title challengers Manton Sports with the Sports team pulling out all the stops to inflict the first defeat of the season for the Vultures. The star players for Sports were James Weston and Ian Henderson who both remained unbeaten in their singles matches to register impressive hat tricks before teaming up to take the doubles as well. The only successes in a 7-3 defeat for the Vultures trio of James Wormwell, Ben Crapper and Kyle McIntosh came when they all comfortably beat John Lowde, but it was never going to be enough to stop Sports registering…full report »