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News Release - BSMTTC News 44
Dateline: 19 May 2016

Trophy slips away!

On the same night as Liverpool FC lost out in the Final of the Europa League Cup, Bath Street Marine 1st Team lost their grip on the trophy in the Final of the L&DTTL Frank Murphy Veterans Handicap Cup.

 

Like Sevilla, 2016 was the third consecutive year that BSM 1 had been in the final of this competition and the team of Ken Jackson (captain), Ricky Brown and Darren Taylor entered the match as the holders of the trophy. However facing a strong East Wavertree team with a significant handicap advantage of 55 points, retaining the trophy was always going to be a tough ask. And to be fair, on paper it looked as if the BSM team might be able to do it. But unlike Sevilla, there was to be no fairy tale end for the Bath Street Boys. 

Mrs Marjorie Murphy with the Frank Murphy Veterans Handicap Cup. The cup was presenmted to the L&DTTL in memory of Marjorie's husband Frank who was tragically killed in a car crash in 1988. 

The Bath Street Marine team before the match - Ken Jackson, Ricky Brown and Darren Taylor. They entered the match as Cup Holders.

Good start

 

Drawn as the home team, by match official Stan Clark, the L&DTTL Cup Secretary, Bath Street started reasonably well, with Ricky Brown nervously chopping his way through 21:19 in the first game. But his opponent the East Wavertree No.1 Lee Madin seemed to find a different gear in the second end as a few rare attacking shots paid off leaving Ricky with no answer and the end surprisingly slipping away 8:21. This meant East Wavertree added a further 11 points to their opening advantage. Further slippage was to follow with Darren Taylor narrowly loosing out to the East Wavertree No.2 Joey Williams in a nervy encounter 33:39 sharing one end each. The difference had slipped to 72 points. Bring on the captain Ruthless Jackson. In true fashion Ken started off like a steam train with relentless backhand shots, taking the game 21:7. But uncharcteristically unforced errors crept into the second end allowing the East Wavertree player, Tony Dixon to amass an excellent 15points. For the first time 3 points had been removed from the opening handicap difference.

 

But equally relentless was the East Wavertree No.1 Lee Madin who then duly dispatched Darren Taylor to take the 'away' side further ahead; now by 68 points. It might have been expected that Ricky would redress the balance against the East Wavertree No.3 Tony Dixon, but Tony really went for his shots and snatched the second end so that Ricky could only recover 4 points. Time for the captain to re-enter the action, but once again a series of unforced errors gave vital points away against a determined Joey Williams who was prepared to try and take his chances. Ken winning both games but only recovering 15 points to leave the BSM team still trailing by 49 points.

Last chance

 

And so to the final 3 sets. first Darren faced his fellow Division 3 player Tony Dixon. As might have been expected the first end was very close with Darren coming through 21:19. But it was Tony who showed the greater adventure in the 2nd game as Darren was forced into error. Tony coming out 12:21 ahead to give the East Wavertree side another 7 point advantage taking them to 56 points ahead with just 2 to play. Ricky did his best to try and leave Ken with a chance in the final end but was well held by some adventurous play from Joey Williams so that Ricky could only reduce the deficit by 9 leaving the BSM team with an impossible task in the last end. Ken duly took his third singles taking 23 points off of the deficit, but by this stage it was too little to late. East Wavertree taking the match by 24 points. It may be that BSM won 12 out of the 18 singles played, but on the night they were just not able to score enough points to prevent the handicap from deciding the match. It was a great effort by the East Wavertree team to grasp the trophy from the hands of the Bath Street team. But equally congratulations to the Bath Street team for their third successive final appearance. Maybe they will be back next year....

 

The trophies were presented by Mrs Marjorie Murphy who was supported through the evening by members of the family.    

The match score-card and the Bath Street Marine team with their runners-up trophies.

 

Below the victorious East Wavertree team, Lee Madin, Tony Dixon and Joey Williams being presented with their winners trophies by Mrs Marjorie Murphy.

 

Then both teams with Mrs Murphy and members of the family. Even Bath Street President Billy Clayton seems to have got in on the photo action!

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