Essex County Table Tennis Association

County Vets Secretary Neil Brierley reports on Essex Vets teams.

A round up of the Essex vets teams at this stage of the season:

040 1st team: Played it’s first weekend on 27/28 October. Led by Tony West, with Clive Carthy, Mark Wicker and Jenny Harrison on the Saturday only ( no lady on the Sunday) this team has 3 points from 3 games. The remaining weekend is 6/7 April at Milton Keynes when Debbie Auvache will be available so we will have a full team.

040 2nd team : John Monk captains this team with Alex Abbott , Kevin Caldon and Gill Locke.They played on 27/28 Oct and 24th Nov. The team has had a magnificent season winning 6 matches out of 7. The only loss was to South Yorkshire who unfortunately won all their games to clinch promotion.

040 3rd team:  This team has 4 points out of 4 so far with wins over Berks and Worcs. The team comprises Paul Martindill, Phil Walker , Keith Fung and Debbie Auvache. Final weekend is 6/7 April in Southampton.

040 4th team : Lin Attridge runs this team with John Poysden, Gary Baker and Richard Brown. They played on 20th Oct, 5th Jan and 9th Feb. The team finished midway with 2 wins, one draw and 3 defeats.

060 1st team:  I was privileged to watch this team on the final day at Milton Keynes on 3rd March  when only set difference allowed Yorkshire to take the national title away from Essex. The standard is incredibly high and Stuart Gibbs, Peter Radford, Dave Bowles and Marjorie Dawson all played superbly.

060 2nd team: Led by Shirley Carroll with Peter Ballard, Alan Burgess and Chris Jacob this team played all their games at BATTS on 5/6 Jan and 10th Feb and really enjoyed their table tennis. They finished a very creditable third and lost only once all season.

Veterans Match Secretary Neil Brierley reports on the progress of the Essex Vets teams in the County Championships so far this year.

The following link provides latest table for all the county sides: http://etta.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/county_championship_tables-2011-12.pdf

5 of our 6 vets sides have commenced their campaign and round up as follows:

ESSEX 1 – Team of captain Tony West plus Clive Carthy , Mark Wicker and Lucy Wang. Played at Keighley and lost 9-1 to Kent, drew 5 all with Leics and lost 6-4 to Sussex. Lucy unbeaten but matches very tough and still have hopes of staying up with second weekend at  Ashford in February.

ESSEX 2 – Led by John Monk with Alex Abbott, Paul Cuming and Elaine Sayer , they have made a great start with wins over Durham, Cambs and Yorks  and were unlucky to lose 6-4 Notts.

ESSEX 3- Captain Paul Martindill , Phil Walker, Ray Lam , Marjorie Dawson and Sue Hickman have made a steady start beating Herefordshire  9-1, drawing 5 -5 with Worcs and losing 6-4 to Herts.

ESSEX 4- Captain Lin Attridge has picked Dave Bowles, John Poysden and Gary Baker  and they beat Bucks 7-3 and lost by the same score to Northants.

ESSEX OVER 60 FIRST TEAM – Captain Dave Bowles has picked Stuart Gibbs and Peter Radford plus Marjorie Dawson  and have made a great start in defence of their national  crown . They beat Herts 7-3,  drew 5-5 with Surrey and beat Worcs 7 -3. All to play for on 25/26 Feb at Milton Keynes.

ESSEX OVER 60 SECOND TEAM – Shirley Carroll captains this team and they play their first weekend later this month. 

All 6 county vets teams have now finished the season. 

Pride of place goes to the O60 team who held on to their national title. Extraordinary achievement when you think the team lost to Kent first half and recovered second half with Shirley Carroll standing in for Marjorie Dawson who was in Australia. The men were Stuart Gibbs, Peter Radford and Dave Bowles and the team actually finished tie top with Kent on 9 points and an identical set average of 41 -19. Essex won on game average of 144-86 to Kent’s 137-86.  

Closely following this was the achievement of Essex O40 first team in retaining their premier status. It was something of a Houdini act  with a win over Northants and a magnificent  draw with Yorkshire all we had to show for the season. Amazingly the 3 points kept us above Surrey and Northants and the team of Mark Wicker, Clive Carthy, Tony West and Julie Vansertima can feel very proud. This was Tony’s debut season and wins over the likes of Chris Rogers and Richard Lightowler proved he is worthy of his place.  

Sadly Essex 2 were riddled with injury and the team led by John Monk played without a lady in the first half. They lost all 7 matches and are relegated from 1A.   Essex 3 led by Reuben Okai narrowly missed promotion from 3C finishing as runners up. Essex 4 captained by Dave Bowles finished sixth in 3B . The O60s second team captained by Shirley Carroll finished 

Neil Brierley

Vets match secretary