The Essex Cadet and Junior Inter league competitions for Season 2015/2016 were held at BATTS Harlow on 2 April 2016. Four Essex Leagues took part in the Junior event, Clacton, Colchester, Harlow and Southend. Only two teams, Harlow and Southend took part in the Cadet event. Thus there were three rounds of matches to be played in the Junior event and just the one match in the Cadet event. All matches were played on two tables. The Junior format was four players with each player to play two singles and one doubles thus giving a ten match format whilst the Cadets format was three players, nine singles plus one doubles. Also at the same time the final three matches in the County Championship Division 1B took place and three players, Sam Hume Zoe Davies and Gracie Edwards played in this event and the Junior Inter League event.

CADETS

The one match between Southend and Harlow resulted in a Southend win 8-2. Diesel Harvey won the two matches for Harlow, -11, 5, 8, 12 against Daniel Zeffie, and 3-2 over Reece Harris-Griffiths, the umpire failing to put the game scores on the Match sheet for that match other than 11-8 for the deciding game, and a 3-0 loss to James Goddard. Lorcan Neville took a game off Reece and Southend won all the others 3-0. Harlow’s other player was Cody Prentice.

JUNIORS

In the opening matches Southend had a 10-0 win over Harlow. Justin Jeffery, Zoe Davies, Matthew Stringer and Matthew Nariel showing that they intended to be a serious challenger for the title. On the other two tables, the match between Clacton and Colchester was a much closer affair and indeed it ended as a draw. It was a match of two halves, Sam Hume and Gracie Edwards winning all the top half matches against Lewis Bardell and Cameron Simpson with Leon and Andy Huang reciprocating against Tom Wilkins and Harry Beezer for Colchester. Andy had the two closest matches, 12, -5, -11, 11, 9 over Tom and -7, 8, -8, 8 ,13 over Harry. The only game that went to five in the top half was Gracie’s match with Cameron, -5, 2, 7, -10, 6

The second round of matches saw another whitewash by Southend, this time over Colchester. Zoe had the toughest time with her two five game wins over Lewis and Cameron and Leon just failed to take Matthew Stringer to a fourth game when losing 12-10. In the other match Clacton held the upper hand over Harlow, winning 8-2, Jaz Harvey claiming the scalps 9, 5, 9 over Harry and -8, 9, -7, 9, 6 against Tom and just failing to win the doubles with partner Ben Sivathanu when losing 11-8 in the fifth game.

In the final round of matches the top two teams, Southend and Clacton, met but Clacton had the herculean task of needing to win 9-1 if they were to deny Southend the Title. When Southend won the first two matches by the two Matthews, Nariel 3, -11, 7, -6, 8 over Tom and Springer 3-0 over Harry that was it. The Result Sheet states a 7-3 win to Southend but the match scores show it to be 6-4. Whichever is correct doesn’t really matter, Southend still win. On the other tables Colchester and Harlow were playing for the honour of the wooden spoon. Colchester’s two doubles wins and Lewis’s 11-8 in the fifth win over George Campbell were the clinchers at the mid stage of the match in their 6-4 win. Diesel had a good win over Cameron and sister Jaz won both her matches 3-1.

The winners trophies were presented on the day by Neil Brierley

Arthur C. Clark
Essex Junior Match Secretary