Bath Street Marine Table Tennis Club
A Table Tennis England PremierClub

Rich Heritage to Keep!

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Action returned this week in the Frank Murphy Cup, the Veterans Handicap Cup competition of the Liverpool & District Table Tennis League. And after escaping the first two rounds of matches, the current cup holding captain, Colin Turner, was at last in action. This time round he leads BSM 6 with a line-up of 1st Division players. The club had two teams in action, the second was BSM 1, led by Dave Aimson, whose team had already fought its way through two rounds of the competition. Both teams faced away matches in this quarter final round. The club's rich heritage in this competition was on the line! 

The Action

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BSM 1, led by Dave Aimson, have already tasted success in this competition with wins in two previous rounds. Once again Dave was able to keep a stable team of himself, Mark Benson and new boy to the club, Mehdi Eskoroochi. All 3 players currently playing in Div 3 of the Liverpool League. For the Quarter Final they faced Sefton Park 2 who had already enjoyed success against a BSM team in the previous round. The Sefton Park players, Jamie Witty, Pat Espinoza and Roy Cunningham currently play in Div 4 of the league but they are all very decent players, so in truth there was very little difference between the ability of the two sides and this was reflected in the handicap difference just 8 points in favour of the Sefton Park team - probably a little generous to BSM! And what a match this proved to be, both teams fighting for every single point a fact reflected in the games. Of the 18 games played 10 were won by BSM and 8 by the home side. There is no doubt though that it was Mehdi who made the difference between the two sides, winning all 6 of his games with a little room to spare and adding 52 points to the points difference in favour of BSM. After 4 sets the BSM team were ahead by 32 points, but after 7 sets it was the home side who were ahead by 7 points. All to play for in the final two sets. Up stepped captain, Dave. A fabulous set with Pat Espinoza sharing 1 game each to leave the teams even. This left Mehdi with the final set, and he made no mistake, securing both games. The final score 405:421 in favour of the BSM team, and a place in the semi-finals.

The Action

 

For the first time in this year's competition the cup holding captain, Colin Turner, was in action with his Div 1 colleagues Julian Quirk & Barry Elliott. They faced an away trip to Rainford who are currently flying high in Div 3 of the league. The difference in standards reflected in the handicap advantage in favour of the home side of 75 points. But the home side would also need to perform well on the table if they wished to prevent their division 1 opposition from overhauling this handicap. It took just 5 sets though for the division 1 players to get on even terms and when they continued to win every game the writing was on the wall for the high-flying Rainford team. In the end Colin and his team won all 18 games leaving the final score as 270:339 in favour of the cup holders. Another semi-final beckons. Might it be 4 in a row for Colin.......?