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News Release - BSMTTC News 58
Dateline: 8 February 2017

It hardly seems five minutes since Round 1 (News Story 170115) but this week has seen Round 2 of the Liverpool & District Table Tennis League Frank Murphy Veterans Handicap Cup competition. And with just two club teams left in the competition there was a lot of pressure on the respective team captains Dave Noden (Bath Street Marine 3) and Keith Dudley (Bath Street Marine 5). Both teams faced potentially difficult away draws and both played their match on the same evening, Tuesday. So how did they fare?

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Handicap Cup - Round 2

Adding to that the team would also face having to make up a handicap deficit of 86 points. Facing a mixture of division 4 and 5 players the team knew that they would have to make up on average 5 points every game to secure the match. This seemed a realistic prospect if all went well. Ted started the ball rolling making up 12 points in the first 2 games. However when Dave then dropped a game to the evergreen Derek Traynor leaving honours even in the second set the team had slipped slightly behind the asking rate. As it turned out that was to be the only slippage and the Bath Street team finished the night winning 17 out of the 18 games. By the end of the sixth set honours were even and the handicap deficit cleared. Sefton Park continued to fight on making it tough to reach the finish line, but in the end the Bath Street team prevailed with a winning margin of 46 points. An excellent team effort. It was suggested that the substitute, Graham, should be awarded Man of the Match, but looking at the picture below he seems a little shy about that! Over the evening Graham conceded just 73 points, Dave 84 and Ted 86. A very enjoyable evening of table tennis with friendly hosting of the Sefton Park Club. 

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Ted Cramsie of BSM 3 certainly looked happy enough ahead of the cup encounter with Sefton Park.

Even before a ball was struck BSM 3 Captain Dave Noden faced a problem for his team. No.1 player and former finalist in this competition Darren Taylor pulled out of the match. For the first time Darren had reached the final of a seniors event in the Southport Closed Table Tennis Tournament and Finals Night was on the same night as the cup match. A big blow. Club Secretary Graham Turner agreed to stand in for the match even though his personal handicap was worse than Darren's despite Darren being the higher ranked player! Work that out if you can? The team of Dave, Ted Cramsie and Graham faced a visit to Sefton Park to face a team that had already knocked out 1 Bath Street team in an earlier round.

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Above, the Bath Street 3 team on the night, Captain Dave Noden, Graham Turner - was he asleep when this picture was taken - and Ted Cramsie and beside it the match score card.

Bath Street 5 Team Captain Keith Dudley faced no such problems leading his settled side of Peter Ashley, Les Dodd and himself in their visit to fellow Division 4 side Maghull 4. And as you would expect with players from the same division the handicaps gave just a small advantage of 7 points to the home side. But this was a night that personally Keith might prefer to forget, winning just 1 out of his 6 games! Fortunately however Peter and Les were in top form and despite Keith's efforts the Bath Street team were ahead from the start and despite the losses remained ahead after every singles set, finishing the night 24 points clear. A very good even match and a fair result. There is no doubt Peter was the Man of the Match conceding just 85 points, and Les 95.

 

So two teams through to the Quarter Final stage with even tougher opposition to follow.    

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Above, the Bath Street 5 team of Keith Dudley, Les Dodd and Peter Ashley, with a copy of the match card alongside.

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