Notley wrestle title back from Cressing

2:39pm Thursday 24th April 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

Black Notley A have regained the Braintree Table Tennis League title they last won in 2006.

And they did so after a cracker of a match against the team that took it off them last year.

The Notley versus Cressing fixture fully lived up to its billing as a title decider.

No fewer than seven of the ten sets went the full five games - two more went to four and only one was decided in straight games.

But it was that one, the opener of the evening, that was in many ways the most important and certainly the most unexpected.

Rik James, a past winner of the Chelmsford individual title, and many times champion at Colchester, was drafted in for only his third appearance of the season in the absence of the injured Peter Hayden.

Three sets for Cressing looked assured.

But that reckoned without an inspired Gary Young. He cast reputations aside and tore through his opponent with a convincing scoreline of 11-4, 11-5, 11-8.

Suitably inspired, Ian Brown took the next set off Trevor Carter after being two games down.

Cressing, however, were not giving up their title without a fight. After Ian Hayden had beaten Ken Lewis in four games, Carter came back to the table to try to do what James had failed to.

He stretched Young to five games but the former Clacton champion just held on to win the fifth at 11-7.

James then beat Lewis, but needed five games to do so, before Brown came back with a vital win over Hayden.

The doubles also went to the wire before Young and Lewis triumphed 11-9 in the fifth against James and Carter, then Carter stretched Lewis almost as far in the next singles, falling this time at 11-8 in the decider.

Cressing still refused to lie down and took the final two sets, Hayden against Young and James against Brown at 11-5 in the final game.

The result meant that Notley took a three-point lead at the top of the table and needed only a modest win over bottom team Rayne B to ensure the trophy ended up on their shelf.

They duly achieved that to make Cressing's subsequent 5-4 defeat by Rayne A (both teams had two players) irrelevant.

Elsewhere, Black Notley B ensured they finished third with a draw against Bocking, while Rayne B at last found the secret of success - use only two players.

Only Paul Mitchell and Brian Riedling were available for their match at Bocking but two wins each plus the doubles gave them a draw, only the second time they have avoided defeat this season.

Perhaps the most stunning result of the season's final weeks was Rayne C's demolition of Notley C in division two.

Rayne C were in serious danger of being relegated when they took on the third-placed side but crunched them 9-1. Five of their wins coming in straight games and the others in four.

Paul Wellington and Tony Hammond were unbeaten to give Hammond ten wins out of 15 in his last five matches after winning only six of the previous 33.

Rob Stannard won the one singles for Notley and four days later proved he is no pushover by beating Philip Lawson and Gordon Fairchild in the C team's 8-2 defeat by their own D team.

Rayne C went on to defeat Notley E 6-4 to consign their opponents to relegation.

In division three, Notley F ended a run of nine defeats by beating their own G team 9-1 - it is no coincidence that Tony Bamsey has missed the last five of those matches - while Nomads held Rayne E to a draw.

In division four Panfield sneaked back into second place after drawing for the third time with Notley I.

Rayne F, who had held second spot, tumbled 9-1 to divisional winners Notley H where the curio was that it was Keith Flowers who lost the only one, Charles Wilkinson getting the better of him.