160318 | bsmttc

News Release - BSMTTC News 41

Dateline: 18 March 2016

Ricky Brown, Darren Taylor and Ken Jackson - Bath Street 1, and Julia Cornish, Graham Turner and Ian McElwee, Bath Street 2 before their semi-final clash in the L&DTTL Frank Murphy Cup.

Ruthless Rules

Ruthless Ken Jackson and his team of Ricky Brown and Darren Taylor were in absolutely imperious form for their semi-final encounter in the Liverpool & District Table Tennis League's Frank Murphy Veterans Handicap Cup competition against their clubmates Bath Street 2 comprising of Ian McElwee, Graham Turner and Julia Cornish, played at Marine before a large crowd of spectators on Thursday evening. At least with two teams playing each other the Club was guaranteed one place in the final this year! Although drawn as the away team, there was no doubting who was in charge of this contest from start to finish, the present cup holders BSM 1.

The Frank Murphy Veterans Handicap Cup held by Bath Street 1, and Ken Jackson the team captain being presented with the cup last season by Mrs Marjorie Murphy whose family sponsor the competition.

Bath Street 2 v Bath Street 1

The fact of the matter in this match was that none of the home team, BSM 2, had any answer to the skill and power of Club No.1 Ken Jackson and the relentless persistence of his No.2 Ricky Brown. Both proved equally unstoppable. Add to this the incredible performance in this tournament of No.3 Darren Taylor and it can quickly be seen why BSM 1 are the current holders of the trophy and why they are going through to the final for the third consecutive year. Starting with a handicap advantage of 81 points BSM 2 knew they would have to work their socks off if they were to hold onto this lead. But try as they might by the end of the 4th set Ken's boys were ahead. Ken himself having destroyed the 2 weaker home side players. Ian might have expected to keep the match alive in the third set playing Darren. However once again Darren excelled with some incredible retrieving and counter hitting, so much so that he held the set 40 pts to 41. Only one other close encounter followed with Graham & Darren sharing the games and the points at 39 each in a well matched contest at set 5. The last 4 sets were fairly academic as Ricky duly dispatched first Ian and then Graham, Darren gave no quarter to Julia and finally Ken saw off Ian in an open final set with some quality play from both players. In the end it was a clear and decisive victory for the Cup Holders winning out by a massive 90 points 290:380, not bad from starting 81 down!!

Bath Street 6

Dave Stoddern, Rob Peat and Colin Mitchell, Bath Street 6, were also in action in the semi final of the Frank Murphy Cup. They faced a visit to the unpredictable and strong East Wavertree side that had knocked a Bath Street team out in the previous round. Surprisingly for two evenly matched sides the BSM team also faced a handicap deficit of 31 points to make up. This did indeed prove to be an evenly contested match, with Rob Peat taking all 3 of his singles matches. Singles wins for Dave and Colin against the home No.3 meant that overall the visitors had won 5 out of the 9 sets played. Despite this excellent effort the BSM team were struggling to close the handicap difference with the East Wavertree team making up for any points lost in one set by points won in another set. Indeed there was no time in the match at which the visitors were ahead, the handicap difference remained to the end, and by the end East Wavertree had added a further 12 points, running out overall winners at 386:343. A good even match where the handicap certainly worked to the advantage of the home side. A very good cup run from Dave's team comes to an end.

Conclusion

So BSM 1 will once again be in the final of the L&DTTL's Frank Murphy Veterans Handicap Cup, but will they be able to retain the trophy against a tenacious and slightly generously handicapped East Wavertree side? We will soon know, the final will be held in the week commencing 25 April at a venue to be decided!