Bath Street Marine Table Tennis Club
A Table Tennis England PremierClub
News Release - BSMTTC News 199
Dateline: 08 November 2025
The Divisional Cups 2025
All of the Club's teams have been in action this week in the respective Divisional Cup competitions of the Liverpool & District Table Tennis League. Here you will find a brief account of how each fared.
1st Team (Division 1 - The Readman Cup)
The Club's 1st team, led by Captain Colin Turner, have already faced one round in this years Divisional Cup competition, and that against a team from Crosby High! In this Quarter Final round they also faced a team from Crosby High, their B Team Adam & Stefan Schober-Thompson & Gavin Lloyd). For this visit to Crosby High, Colin was joined once again by Clare Peers, and Josha Matthewman replaced Barry Elliott who played in the previous round. The match started well for the BSM side as they took the first 3 sets after some very close games. But the Crosby side fought back including two excellent wins for Adam Schober-Thompson, both in very close sets needing all 5 games. But in the end it was the BSM team who prevailed taking a very good 2:5 win and a place in the semi-final. It may be hard to avoid a draw against yet another Crosby High side in that!
The picture shows the Crosby High side on the left and the BSM trio on the right.
The match card shows that 4 out of the 7 sets played needed a decider and only 1 set was won three straight.
A & B Teams (Division 2 - The Rumjahn Cup)
A feature this year of the 2nd division is the fact that it has no fewer than 3 junior teams in it. More than any other division. And both BSM teams drew a junior side for their quarter-final match. The A Team, currently sitting top of Div 2, took on Cadwa 1st Junior Team, currently sitting second in the division and led by former BSM division 1 player, Dermot Tierney, playing alongside his 12 year old son, Ronan, and Theo Cheung - playing his first season in the Liverpool League. Team Captain, Julian Quirk led the BSM side and alongside him were the very experienced Dave Aimson & Monica Coogan. The key set in this match was a titanic 5 game set between the two left-handers Ronan & Julian. Ronan showed just how much he has improved since the end of last season by somehow edging it in the fifth to record an outstanding win. Dermot, as perhaps expected, took both sets he played, Theo edged out Dave with 2 games going 12:10. Ronan took a second against Monica and the match was over! 5:0 to the Cadwa team. The A Team will need to bring in the big guns when these two teams meet in the league!
The B Team faced Maghull B Juniors, who currently sit third in the division. This match started well for the BSM side with Captain Barry Davis taking a hard earned 2:3 win, but after that it was all down hill! Neither Mal Kent nor Dave Stoddern could repeat the captain's example allowing the home side to romp home 5:1. Surprisingly both teams from this division were out of the cup!
To the left, the BSM A Team.
And below left, the BSM B Team and the B Team match score card.
C Team (Division 3 - The Hyde Cup)
Team Captain Marcin Bytnar took his C Team to face the up and coming juniors of Cadwa C. For this match he was joined by new signing Daniel Cygan and junior Kai Morgan. Despite their youth there are some very decent players in the Cadwa team! Confidence is low at the moment in the BSM side and this seemed to show in the scores! Three of the 5 sets played went to five games with two being lost at 12:10 in the fifth, and all three falling to the home team. Nothing seems to go your way when confidence is low! Despite their best efforts the BSM side just couldn't get on the right side of the winning line, the match going 5:0 in favour of the home team.
The picture to the left is the BSM C Team of Daniel, Marcin & Kai. And next to it the match score card. Looking at the card it seems clear the BSM team deserved better than 0 on the score board!
D & E Teams (Division 4 - The Forrest Cup)
At one stage it looked as if a final doubles decider might be needed in the Div 4 cup match between the D Team and Sefton Park B, as it was, all eight singles were needed. The first 4 singles saw honours even, with three sets going the full distance. The slight surprise here was Mahir Mahmood's 9:11 in the fifth win over Andy Armstrong. Indeed, Mahir was the star player for the visitors taking both of his singles. In the next 4 singles, the turning point was probably teenager Charlie King's 3 straight win over Jamie Gilbert to put the BSM team ahead. Andy Armstrong then put them further ahead, but Mahir pulled it back for Sefton Park with an exceptional win over home No.1, James Sullivan. It was left to D Team Captain, Danny Every, to finish the match or take it to extra time! He duly obliged with a 3 straight win over the visitors No.1, Ian Findon to complete his unbeaten run for the evening, giving the D Team an excellent 5:3 win. A terrific match.
Above - left, the BSM D team, centre, the Sefton Park B team and to the right the match score card.
Above right, the BSM G team, Ivan Maksym, Henry Sinker, James Haskell & Kai Morgan. And next to them, the Maghull D team, Denise Chorley, Gary Hamilton, Ged Hanley and Naresh Tagore.
The second match in Div 4 involved the E Team who visited Maghull to play high-flying Maghull F who currently sit second in the divisional table. A tough fixture! Former BSM member, Ned Hassan, led the Maghull side, and was able to take both of his singles. But, inspirationally, BSM Captain, Gwyn Powell-Wilde, brought in veteran cup campaigner, Keith Dudley, for this match. Using his controlled style and consistency Keith stole both of his singles, which when added to wins for Gwyn, Martin Vines and Richie Jones meant that the BSM side had stolen the match 3:5. An amazing achievement and an excellent win. The scorecard which tells the story is opposite. Sadly, no picture from this game.
F Team (Division 5 - The Stamp Cup)
Harold House B were the visitors to Marine in the Stamp Cup. Probably two things you don't expect in a cup match in Div 5. First, normally you wouldn't expect to see a recognised division 2 player amongst the opponents, and second you wouldn't normally expect to see someone who you believed was a player for your own club playing for the opponents! But both were features of this match! Unsurprisingly, Steve Wearden won both of his singles for Harold House. But Stuart Reid, Alan Hale and then Steve McCormick all fought back hard for BSM taking excellent singles wins, so that after 6 sets honours were even. But once Steve had restored the Harold House lead it seemed to take the wind from the BSM sails and the visitors went on to take the eighth set too giving a final match score of 3:5 for Harold House. A very good match.
Above left, the BSM F Team with non-playing Captain Keith Hardman.
And, above right the Harold House B Team with non-playing captain Peter Findlater (centre).
The match score card is to the left. A really good match.
And in conclusion.......
A week of very good table tennis and keenly contested matches with some real cup drama, and 3 teams through to the next round, the semi-finals. Let's hope for a derby in Div 4 in the semi-final to guarantee at least one club side reaches a final!