{"id":4556,"date":"2026-04-26T10:55:04","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T09:55:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/?p=4556"},"modified":"2026-04-26T10:57:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T09:57:03","slug":"the-stars-are-shining-bright","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/2026\/04\/26\/the-stars-are-shining-bright\/","title":{"rendered":"The stars are shining bright"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Over the course of every season there are some phenomenal individual and team performances but this week we honour the most valuable players across the length and breadth of the season in the Burnham & District Table Tennis League.  All of the stats for every player in the league have been fed into the Editors ZX Spectrum and we can now reveal the worthy winner for each division.  To be eligible players must have played at least 50% of the team matches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Division 1 (Peter Ballard Cup)  \u2013 Winner Liam Squirrell, Mapledene TTC (96%)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Liam Squirrell is the man to beat in the top Division, and this year he only lost a single match all season.  A fast, forceful and resilient player \u2013 he just keeps coming at you with power and precision.  This year Squirrell was pushed hardest by Dan Young of Woodham TTC, and Keith Adams of Fambridge.  Squirrell will be presented with the Peter Ballard Cup by the very same Peter Ballard at the upcoming Presentation Evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Division 2 (Brian Ellis Cup)  \u2013 Winner Lloyd Bennett-Smith, Maldon TTC (89%)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until the final game of the season it looked like Maldon\u2019s Colin Napper had the Brian Ellis Cup all wrapped up with a win rate of 82% across the season.  However by playing the final game Lloyd Bennett-Smith qualified for entry into the ZX Spectrum and with only 3 losses in this very competitive cohort after much whirring and chin rubbing he came out on top.  Next year Bennett-Smith will be back in the top flight where he belongs.  Not surprisingly the top 5 slots were held by players from the two promoted teams with Blackwater A\u2019s Denis Balic and Neil Freeman coming in 3rd<\/sup> and 4th<\/sup> respectively, and Maldon\u2019s talisman Hamish Innes taking 5th<\/sup> place on 74% win rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Division 3 (Roy Davis Cup) \u2013 Winner Gary Smith, Blackwater TTC (94%)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At one point it looked like Gary Smith would go the whole season unbeaten \u2013 but then he had his own weekus horribilus<\/em> at the end of January when he lost 3 games in two matches in quick succession.  After a few bouts of therapy he came back fighting and resumed his winning ways for the remainder of his phenomenal season.  Smith was the runaway leader all season but the battle to chase him down was fierce.  In the end the runner up was Woodham\u2019s Simon Thomas who had a really good run in in his first season back for many a year.  Much more to come from him next season no doubt.  In 3rd<\/sup> place was the 2024 winner of the Roy Ellis Cup Blackwater\u2019s Peter Davenport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

___________________________________________<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eamonn Hall, Press Officer<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Burnham & District Table Tennis League<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

____________________________________________<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pic 1 \u2013 Peter Ballard Cup Winner 2026, Liam Squirrell in full concentration mode<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pic 2 \u2013 Brian Ellis Cup Winner 2026, Lloyd Bennet-Smith in action at the Maldon TTC arena<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pic 3 \u2013 Roy Davis Cup Winner 2026, Gary Smith stretching to maintain his winning streak<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    Over the course of every season there are some phenomenal individual and team performances but this week we honour the most valuable players across the length and breadth of the season in the Burnham & District Table Tennis League.  All of the stats for every player in the league have been fed into the Editors […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":2554,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[10],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4556"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4556"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4560,"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4556\/revisions\/4560"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.essextabletennis.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}