180217 | bsmttc

News Release - BSMTTC News 76

Dateline: 17 February 2018

Close Matches in Cup

The Bath Street Marine teams were involved in some really close matches in Round 2 of the L&DTTL Frank Murphy Veterans Handicap Cup staged this week. But the current holders of the cup, Keith Dudley's BSM 4 side, fought their way through to take up a place in the Quarter Final.

In the Round 2 stage all 5 of the Club's teams involved effectively played at home, even though 1 of them was drawn as the away side! But let's start with the Cup Holders. They were the last match of the week on Friday night, facing Linacre 2. This looked like two very evenly matched sides, which the handicap difference seemed to support with just +24 points in favour of Linacre. The first two sets started very evenly with both being shared 1 game each and just 4 points reduced from the handicap difference by the home side. Set 5 was similarly close with Keith putting in a tremendous effort to match his higher ranked opponent, the visiting No.1. But 5 sets in the middle of the match all falling to the home side meant that by the time the final set started the handicap deficit had been eradicated and the home side were 39 ahead. The visiting No.1 did his best in the final set, but his win by just 8 oints wasn't enough. Giving the cup holders a 31 point victory. A great result.

Members of BSM 4 and Linacre 2 ahead of a very close cup match on Friday 16 Feb. From the left, Harry Nelson (Linacre 2), Linacre Club Secretary Harry Reeves, Peter Ashley (BSM), les Dodd (BSM), Charlie Bradshaw (Linacre 2), Aleks Charcenko (Linacre 2) and Keith Dudley (BSM 4 Captain).

First Up

The first cup match of the week featured BSM 5 (Dave Noden (Captain), Darren Taylor & Ted Cramsie) v Merseyside Police 2. Again this looked like being a very close match with 2 even sides and just 4 points in handicap difference separating the teams in favour of the Police. The Police started strongly with their No.1, Steve Gittins, taking the opening set. In the middle of the match there were 5 shared sets, but on each occasion the edge just went to the home side. The decisive sets were a fine win by Darren over Mike Winder in set 3 and Ted Cramsie with a clear win over Tom Purcell in set 8. So that by the end of set 8 the match was effectively lost to the Police who duly conceded the final set to give the home side a clear 406;322 point victory. Dave's men the first team through to the Quarter Final.

Valentine's Day Derby

St Valentine's Day brought together BSM 6 v BSM 2. The team topping Division 2 against the team at the bottom of Division 5 of the L&DTTL. But with the underdogs having a 305 point handicap advantage there would have to be no love lost if the higher ranked side were to make up the difference and go on to win the match! And the score card shows that they set about their task with absolute determination! Even so by the end of the 8th set the 'home' side of Barry Davis (Captain), Matt Wilson and Colin Turner were still behind by 9points. Captain Barry made a sporting contest of the final set, but in the end the higher ranked side were just too strong, going on to win by just 18 points. Captain Keith Hardman, said of his team of Mark Benson, Tony Rimmer and Liz Adams, "we can take a lot of positives from the match, we are learning all the time". He went on to congratulate the winners for their sportsmanship towards a much weaker side, and for taking time afterwards to encourage and make suggestions about serves and shots.

To the left, BSM 6 with Colin Turner, Matt Wilson & Captain Barry Davis. On the right, Mark Benson and Tony Rimmer of BSM 2, but what happened to Liz Adams....??

Class always shines through

Top man, Keith Williams, had to pull out all the stops to help the team in Thursday's Round 2 encounter featuring BSM 3 (Andrew Armstrong (Captain), Keith Williams and Graham Turner) against Merseyside Police 1. The home side with a handicap advantage of 12 points faced a very strong Police side with players from Divisions 2 & 3 of the L&DTTL. In a match where the final score was 9 games each, it was only the positive scoring of No.1 Keith (+62 points) that was just enough to overcome the negative scores of Andy (-15) and Graham (-26). At the start the match swayed one way then the other so that after 5 sets the Police were just ahead. But when Keith redressed the balance with an emphatic win in set 6 to move the home side back into the lead there was no looking back. Andrew and Graham were able to hang on in the next two sets so that by the final set Keith could relax and enjoy the game. The final set of the night saw some of the best table tennis of the match between the two No.1's with Keith just edging through to add 4 more points to the margin allowing the BSM 3 side to win by 33 points. A very enjoyable night with a good, but tough, match.

BSM 3 Captain Andrew Armstrong (right) with top man, Keith Williams. The score card shows just how much Keith brought to this match.

Overall

So, overall a very good Round 2 with 4 out of the Club's 5 teams through to the Quarter Final stage. Seems very likely that the next round will see at least 1 derby........maybe 2?

All the results were:

BSM 3 373 pts v Merseyside Police 1 340pts

BSM 4 460pts v Linacre 2 429 pts

BSM 5 406 pts v Merseyside Police 2 322 pts

BSM 6 359pts v BSM 2 341 pts