Watfordttblog

WATFORD & DISTRICT TABLE TENNIS LEAGUE

Division One is proving to be a very competitive group. Six of the teams are covered by five points, and because of the closeness teams are swapping places on a regular basis. Post Office however are well in front of the rest, and Oxhey Hall ‘A’ are well behind. The two sides met this week, with P.O. winning 8-0, no surprises. Gazelles and West Watford ‘B’ both had 7-1 victories vs. Watling ‘A’ and ‘B’. Dave Sims and Sally Bax starring for Gazelles and Richard Cottle and Russ Davies likewise for West Watford ‘B’. Eagles lost unexpectedly 2-6 to Falcons, but they are still in second place. Peter Denholm excelled for Falcons.

In Div Two the two top sides met and there was a resounding win for the leaders Hounds 7-1 vs. Iguanas. Gerry Evans and Mitch Haynes unbeaten for Hounds. Struggling Oxhey Hall ‘B’ earned a hard fought draw with Watling ‘C’, five games needing five legs to decide the winners. Peter Meisel starred for Watling. Mike Sindic was the difference between his side Audit ‘A’ and Jaguars who were beaten 5-3.

In Div Three, Audit ‘B’ continue to forge ahead, although Panthers put up a good fight, and there were thirty two legs played and the 7-1 defeat did no justice to the efforts of Panthers. Ospreys quickly established a two game lead, but that was all they managed in losing 2-6 to Watling ‘D’, for whom Mike Shulz starred. The all cadet team (under fifteen) of Meerkats continue to improve and they remain in second spot with another win, 5-3 vs. Lions this time. Ishan Bairoliya unbeaten for Meerkats.

In the Premier Div, Abbots Langley got their first win of the season, when beating Bats 5-3. Ken Stonebridge their star. No problems for West Watford ‘A’ who won for the eleventh time, Cougars going down 2-6. Tony Dias had two good wins for Cougars. Aardvarks after a bad start, had no further problems and ran out easy winners vs. Dolphins, 7-1 the final score. Max Bonyadi and Geof Bax in good form.

Results:

Premier Div : Aardvarks vs. Dolphins 7-1; West Watford ‘A’ vs. Cougars 6-2; Abbots Langley vs. Bats 5-3.
Div One: Oxhey Hall ‘A’ vs. Post Office 0-8; Gazelles vs. Watling ‘A’ 7-1; Falcons vs. Eagles 6-2; Watling ‘B’ vs. West Watford ‘B’ 1-7.
Div Two: Hounds vs. Iguanas 7-1; Watling ‘C’ vs. Oxhey Hall ‘B’ 4-4; Audit ‘A’ vs. Jaguars 5-3.
Div Three: Audit ‘B’ vs. Panthers 7-1; Meerkats vs. Lions 5-3; Ospreys vs. Watling ‘D’ 2-6; Lions vs. Ospreys 6-2.

Match reports by : Geof Bax

Eagles vs Lions - Handicap Cup report.

Sadly I can no longer refer to the long and stylish losing streak of Brian Clark because it has ended, which for those who struggle to understand, means he won a game! In fact he was star player winning three singles including a hard battle vs Roger Dean.

Great praise goes to me! He He. Earlier in the day, when suffering after a bizarre physio session on my back injury consisting of hot stones, hypnotism and massage from a voluptuous hourglass  49-21-49 torturer,I was going to concede the on/off/on/off/on cup tie. But with amazing fortitude and commitment, I thought Id have a go and show support for Geof Bax and The Watford League. Ha bloody Ha! "tis better to have tried and failed than not try at all" once said the Arsenal manager.

As it happens I won all my sets 11-0. Well almost! Okay..I lie.
It was nice to meet a fellow chatterbox in Mr Bob Wyard, who seemed a bit sad when  forced to shut up and actually play some table tennis.
Highlight of the evening was def James playing Abe Jacobs. James, who at his best can thrash the likes of Seaholme and Ogle, seemed content to have practice at walking around and picking up the ball as countless ferocious forehand winners from Abe shot past him. Clearly sensing a great opportunity for ball retrieval practice, James showed astute tactical awareness and continued to 'feed' Abes forehand and thus achieved the desired pick up the ball practice. A very entertaining and watchable game which myself and Brian will delight in reminding James of in the weeks to come.
Eagles just managed to overcome the handicap and won by a mere 19 points.

Jets Cougars v Abbots Langley Handicap Match Report played on 28th

The match started at around 7.45 with Tony Dias, Graham Gorb & Richard Bellamy from the home team and Ken Stonebridge & Mick Lowens form the opposing team present and Alan Phipps on his way. There was some speculation in the Cougars team that Abbots Langley would have 30 points advantage.
 
First on was Graham Gorb against Mick Lowens who started well but Mick managed to keep the difference in points down to 11. Next on was Ken Stonebridge against Richard as Alan had still not arrived and Ken won comfortably putting Abbots Langley in the driving seat with Cougars now by quite a few points.
 
This was quickly reversed when Tony played Alan and put Cougars back in the driving seat, and followed up with another accrual of points against Mick. Graham then managed to keep the points loss down by keeping as close to Ken as possible in the 1st & 3rd games. Richard added more when he took all 3 games against Alan.
 
Next was the battle between Tony  & Ken. The first game was tight with Ken edging it 11-9 and was cruising in the second at 9-3 only for Tony to win the next 8 points and the game. The final game ended with Ken edging it 11-9. At the end of this match Cougars had amassed 38 points, but was that enough?
 
The final doubles started with Alan & Mick winning the 1st game comfortably, and going by Cougars doubles record of 0% wins it seemed that Abbots Langley were going to reduce the points differential drastically. The second game was much tighter and only a few points in it which Abbots won. The final game may have been a contributing factor to the overall result as Graham & Richard played well to win. The points tally at this moment in time showed Cougars were 30 ahead of Abbots Langley
 
Finally the all important envelope was opened. Abbots Langley had been awarded 24 points. Cougars won by 6 points. Roll on the next round hopefully we play WWCC A????

Lions tamed by Eagles!!!

Sounds improbable? Well it happened on Thursday 28th at Queens.

Eagles Div 1 V Lions Div 3 (Handicap Cup)

It was a great match with some games going very close. The star of the evening was the Lions new signing Abe Jacobs who managed to take a game off Jamie Banfield.

Ian Banfield who was carrying an injury still managed to put up a great show.

Eagles 260 points
Lions 121 points + 120 points handicap =241

Losing by 19 points, which equates to less than I point per game, Great handicapping Gordon.

On another note, looking at the rules for playing handicap matches I feel that the rule regarding who wins on the event of a tie seems to be wrong. Eagles having already given us 120 points! if we had drawn with the them we would of won the match.
I as the underdog on most of these matches would be happy to concede the draw to the those who are already giving points away.

What do you all think?
(Have I opened a can of worms? Send me some for my next trip to the canal!)

BOBxx Wyard (captain of the Lions)

Watford Pair in Vetts Div. 1 British League honours this weekend!

The Watford league has two representatives at this weekends Veterans British League in Doncaster. Fullerians Glen Wilkes and Jets Bats Stuart Seaholme will be representing Fulmarks in Division One of the veterans premier team competition playing against many of the countries leading veteran players.

 

The Hertfordshire pair, will join Lincolnshire's Andy Wignall, Yorkshire's Mark Donaghue and Essex's Mark Wicker to form a strong squad with high hopes. The team lie third after the first weekend, played in Hereford in October, but within sight of the top team whom they will play on Sunday morning.

 

I'm sure like me you wish our local top players all the best for the coming weekend!

 

Report submitted by : Chris Ogle 

WWCC 'A' vs Kangaroos - Handicap Cup 27th Jan 2010

3 Matches being staged at the Watford Grammar School TTPro academy this evening, plus top junior coaching with two youngsters in the English top 50 rankings working hard in the busy Table Tennis Hall.

WWCC 'A' played host to Jets Kangaroos in the Handicap Cup. WWCC 'A' are riding high in the Premier division, Kangaroos are mid table in division two, so the handicap would be interesting to discover later in the night.

WWCC 'A' fielded Chris Ogle, Roger Pyle and captain Howard Davies... once again braving the bad knee to turn out for the team... Alan Thomas unable to play due to commitments in the Hemel annual league tournament. Kangaroos were represented by Tony Schapps, Jack Pegram and Mark Sullivan.

Roger Pyle managed to contain Tony in their first match restricting Tony's points tally to 11, whilst Chris Ogle second on managed to keep Mark to 13... Howard 3rd on against Jack did well too... so looking pretty good so far for WWCC.

4th game Chris against Tony and although Chris got off to a good start I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say that a rather unbelievable bout of nets and edges left the score at 9-9 !! Chris won that leg, only to suffer another barrage of nets and edges in the second leg which Tony took 11-9 !! The 3rd set when Chris's way 11-2 but the damage was already done....

The remainig games went pretty much as the first three and the doubles also... The fun part about the Watford Handicap cup is to see the points when the 'brown envelope' is opened at the end... Guesses ranged from 180 points down to 120, Howard thought 140, Chris 160+....eventually it was 144

Quick calculation showed the Kangaroos had earned 99 points and WWCC 'A' 262.. with the 144 handicap points kangaroos had 243... 19 short of a draw and 20 short of a win... WWCC 'A' live to fight another day!

Good spirited match played with smiles and good humour, match started at 7:40pm and finished at 9:15pm.

Match report by : Chris Ogle

Jack Pegram local Table Tennis hero makes great strides!!

Jack Pegram has now left the junior ranks but look at the latest BTTD ranking list. He is number 5 and 2nd in his catergory rating 3. A huge improvement in the last year. Playing in the league has helped him develop some aspects of his game but is so very different from playing other wheelchair players. He is preparing to go to university and we hope that he will be able to continue his development and then gain some deserved international experience. See below excerpt from the BTTAD Disability Grand Prix Ranking list novembr 2009

Information supplied by : Jill Pegram

Div. 3 Panthers Vs Newts - 11th Jan 2010

APOLOGIES TO MARTIN BLAKE - Sorry this one got missed somehow !!

The Newts traditional BIG Game (to sort out who finishes bottom of Div 3) is versus Watling D (Pauline, Freyaand their merry men) but they're happily a mid table team this year. No, this year it's Versus The Panthers. Things looked good for the Newts when 3 Panthers turned up, none of whom I'd met.

Unfortunately the writing was on the wall after rapidly going 3 v 0 down, these new guys were no pushovers. Margaret Sims, who should know better with such an illustrious high flying Div 1 husband, is now dropped from the Newts team. I'm sure belly laughing at her Captain missing a sitter to go 10 - 0 down in the first leg of a 5 set thriller v Stuart Cass (whilst refereeing) isn't something her husband would condone.   

My wife Cathy put in a sterling performance to out wit increasingly heavy top spin from Steve Marsh, but couldn't hold it together in the doubles with the subversive Mrs Sims.

Division 3 watch out. Stuart Cass and Clive Nicklin were both undefeated & showed great promise in only their 2nd match, indeed Clive hasn't even started with his new bat yet.

Pleasure to meet all you new guys. Enjoyable evening. Panthers 6 v Newts 2  

Match Report by : Martin Blake ( Captain of The Newts )

Handicap Cup night at St. Marks saw the Auditors have mixed results

In an all division Two match Audit "A" team of Colin Dunstone, Mike Sindic and Neill Jenkins narrowly defeated the Jaguars (John McShane, Danny Leiwy and Mitchell Hyams) by just 7 points in a closely contested match where the decisive match was Colin v Mitchell as Colin banked a net 19 points. John Mcshane starred for the Jaguars dropping only 2 points.

In the other match division Three Audit "B" team of Tom Sapundziav, John Hutchison and Dave Steuart were throughly outclassed by division One opponents Watling "A" (Graham Spooner, Graham Roland and Wayne Meizel) The only bright sparks for the Auditors was John Hutchison taking a game off of Wayne Meizel and Dave Stuart punching above his weight to take 19 points from Wayne. The remaining games all going to Watling by significant margins allowing Watling to run out winners by a massive 38 points.

Gordon Hitchman

Forget Google we've got David Edwards!!

Watford Table Tennis League are privileged to have an International Table Tennis umpire - David Edwards playing regularly in our local league. David has very kindly offered to be our very own 'fount of knowledge' about any Table Tennis laws or rules that we may have questions about. We will be locating these posts all into the UMPIRES CORNER section... so don't hold back...

Excerpt from David's email below -:

Frequently at matches (including last night) I am asked questions about the Rules of the game and what to do in certain situations.

It got me thinking and I thought the Blog might be a good forum for players to ask me questions. I look at the wesite almost every day, so I should be able to provide an answer quickly. If I can't answer the question immediately, I will find out the answer.

I would be happy to provide this service to our readers.

Now we have absolutely no excuses... any dubious points or questions just ask away... (I'm sure David would even help others struggling in not so 'tech savvy' table tennis leagues).

Post submitted by : Chris Ogle / Stuart Seaholme