Essex Press Office

Reported by Steve Kerns
Press & Publicity Officer
Essex County Table Tennis Association

Junior Match Secretary Arthur Clark Reports.

The second round of Junior Division 1A matches was held at Grantham on Saturday 10 April 2010. After the first round a fortnight ago at Draycott the Essex second team were in fifth place, only one point behind the three equal leaders. At the Easter weekend at the East Regional Qualification for the National Under 11/14’s events it emerged that this Saturday’s matches clashed with the Cotswold 4 Star event at Cheltenham as well as Schools Easter holidays and we would lose Alex Holland, Ify Okafor and Ella Patel. With Grace Collier injured and the next ten Essex ranked Girls all unavailable the situation became desperate. Chelmsford to the rescue with Sarah Austin and Rebecca Denyer agreeing to play with Scott Dowsett travelling as well to rplace Alex. At least we had a full team but a good League position a distant prospect and could we avoid relegation. Of the three teams below Essex they all had stronger teams this time. All matches were played on two tables

Essex’s first match was against Lincolnshire who were only above Essex in the table by virtue of a slightly better sets difference. The opening matches saw Brandon lose 3-1 to Michael Bates whilst on the other table Scott beat Sean Ward by the same score. With Sarah and Rebecca outclassed by Hannah Winfield and Dominique Jones Anthony beat Edward Winfield 3-0 easily and Brandon beat Sean in four to square the match. For a while a surprise looked a possibility as Sarah took a 2-1 lead over Dominique but lost the last two games tamely. Anthony beat Michael 3-0 but Scott lost by the same score line for a 6-4 defeat.

Nottinghamshire had strengthened their team with the inclusion of Sam Walker and he led them to a 7-3 victory over Essex. Anthony and Scott had started with 3-1 wins over Aiden Keyworth and Harrison Chalkley respectively and it was not until the last match that Essex gained another win, Brandon beating Harrison 3-1. At the halfway stage Scott had pulled back a 2-0 deficit against Aiden but lost his way completely in the fifth. The girls lost both their matches against Sophie Neil and Lea Dickenson although Sarah did take a game off Lea.

Essex’s third match was against the leaders, Cleveland, who had brought in the England Nos. 8 and 12 Junior Girls Chloe Whyte and Jessica Dawson and No. 54 Boy Paul Smith to strengthen their team. Although Anthony beat Anthony Pheonix in the first match after losing the first game to 2 all the rest went to Cleveland, only Scott taking a game off Anthony P. and Anthony K. a game off Paul. With this win and other results going their way Cleveland had an unassailable lead going in to the last round of matches.

Focus on this last round wasn’t at the top of the Table, although the runners up position was between Staffordshire and Lincolnshire, but at the bottom. Cheshire, who had to play Lincolnshire, had 3 points as had Bedfordshire who had Essex 2 to play, we had the 4 points won at Draycott and South Yorkshire, a team with no girls today and who had Cleveland to play, were with the 5 points they had gained at Draycott.. Thus Essex needed to beat Beds to be sure of avoiding relegation but a draw would be sufficient if Cheshire lost to Lincs or S. Yorks heavily to Cleveland.. Much would depend upon the girls on both sides, none of whom had registered a win between them. For Essex it was a bad start to their match. For Brandon, who won the first game, couldn’t convert a couple of game points to take his match with Ben Gardner to a fifth, losing -9, 7, 8, 12 whilst on the other table, Scott, coming back from 2-0 down to Josh Robinson, faltered in the fifth game turning round 5-2 down and eventually losing 3, 4, -9, -8, 5. Sarah was next on and comfortably beat Caroline Hall 5, 8, 3 whilst Rebecca then had to play the Beds No. 1 girl Zoe Gardner. Losing the first game to two unplayable net points from 9-9 she went on to win 6, 7, 8 to square the match. Anthony beat Nathan Forbes 3-1 and if Brandon could beat Josh things would look much rosier from an Essex point of view. Alas, coming back from well down in the fourth he could not convert two game points to a fifth game, losing -14, 5, 9, 12. At this stage match scores on other tables revealed that South Yorkshire had lost 8-2 whilst Cheshire were 4-0 up against Lincs. Even if Cheshire won an Essex draw would now be sufficient for their needs as they had a better sets difference than that S. Yorks. The remaining two matches for the girls would be crucial. Sarah had a comfortable 4, 2, 7 win over Zoe and Rebecca had won her first game against Caroline to 4. In the second the umpire had awarded a point the wrong way round which Rebecca had missed and thinking she had won the game 11-9 found she had another six points to play to win it 14-12. Whether this disturbed her or not she lost the first four points of the third game and was always behind to lose 11-5. After encouragement from coach Terry Dowsett she always led in the fourth to eventually win 10-8 and secure Essex’s place in the first Division for another year. Just as well as Anthony and Scott both lost their last games 3-0 to Ben and Nathan With Cheshire beating Lincs 9-1 Staffs took the runners up position pulling back a 5-3 deficit to draw with Notts. For South Yorks the absence of girls was disastrous as, following relegation from the Premier Division last season, they dropped from second place after the first round of matches to now be relegated to Division 2. For Rebecca a baptism of fire against some of the top girls in th country but some rewarding experience and the pleasure of winning two matches for the County including that priceless fifth game and precious point from the Beds match.

Arthur C. Clark
Essex Junior Match Secretary.