It was crunch time this week in the top division of the Burnham & District Table Tennis League. Cold Norton B found themselves in the envious position of just needing a win against the bottom and only winless team in the top flight to secure the most unlikely of championship victories.
So having destroyed would-be champions Mapledene A the previous week Cold Norton B found themselves just one win away from the title, and they just needed to hold their nerve against the struggling Woodham C and their talent should see them through and straight onto the open bus parade. This they did with some style as Ian Wall and Eric Green secured the sixth win of the night in a straight sets double shootout. Wall and Green were truly impeccable all evening as they went through the card without dropping a single leg, whereas third wheel Sam Lowman was a bit jittery as the pressure of the Title was clearly playing on his mind – poor boy! Lowman needed 4 sets to get past both Peter Harverson and Graham Briggs, and then fell to the mighty forehand of Chris Hancox in a 5 set thriller for Woodham to secure a consolation point over the now-confirmed Champions. In recent weeks Cold Norton have bested both Fambridge and Mapledene A so are clearly deserved Title Winners. Fambridge are now confirmed as Runners-Up, with the player of the division looking likely to be Reece Seddon of Mapledene A but there are still a couple of matches left that could change things around.
Elsewhere in Division 1 Mapledene A took out their anger on Cold Norton C with a 9-1 thumping. Kim Shead took the only Norton point with a straight sets win over Steve Muth. For Mapledene both Liam Squirrell and George Reeves took trebles on the night, with Reeves just sneaking past the impressive Shead 14-12 in the nail-biting deciding set. Woodham A had the temerity to steal one of Woodham B’s players to complete their trio for the Woodham derby, and then went onto secure an embarrassing 8-2 victory. Sanjay Saptarshi started his long evening with a rip-roaring 5th set triumph over Chris Penrose, and then repeated that effort with another 5 set victory over supposed team-mate Dan Patynski. Patynski the deserter had already come through an opening round 5 setter against his former Captain Eamonn Hall so it was looking like a long evening for the large Woodham crowd that had assembled for this feast of wiff-waff. With Penrose and Patynski dropping points it was up to the third P in the trio, Captain Dan Piglet, to steady the ship as he won both his openers to set up a winner takes all finale with Saptarshi. Before we got to that one Saptarshi maintained his ‘money’s worth’ evening with another 5 set match in the doubles as he and Hall just lost out to the Penrose and Piglet combo. And so to the Finale, Piglet took the opener, Saptarshi got serious for a 2-1 lead then allowed the Piglet back into the match and eventually he had his pork belly rubbed as Piglet took home the bacon for a superb ham-trick in another 5 setter for Saptarshi as he completed his 20/20 evening. Woodham C were playing their second match of the week and this time they were facing the in-form Mapledene B. Mapledene’s Colin Chatfield hit a perfect hat-trick for the player-of-the-match accolade but it was also great to see Anthon Ranjit-Singh in excellent form as he vanquished both Chris Hancox and Dave Penrose in 5 sets, and only lost out to Peter Harverson in 4. Keith Willet also hit a treble on the night as part of his team’s 8-2 winning margin, and he too edged past the unlucky Hancox in 5. Given that Willett and Chatfield were unbeaten in singles and Hancox and Penrose didn’t bother the scoreboard at all during that same period you would have thought the doubles betwixt these combos would be pretty straightforward and the Mapledene duo would plough through the Woodham pair – but the sporting Gods had other ideas as the boys from Woodham wrapped up the bonus point in 5 sets to truly upset the Mapledene apple cart.
