Bath Street Marine Table Tennis Club
A Table Tennis England PremierClub

Grand Finale!

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The clubhouse was full to the rafters for the Final of the L&DTTL Frank Murphy Veterans Handicap Cup, played on Tuesday 8 May. The crowd of 32 included Marjorie Murphy, the widow of Frank Murphy and sponsor of the trophy, Myra Lovelady, Frank's sister, and Frank's nephew and his wife. Tremendous support from the sponsors of this trophy. League Secretary Tom Purcell was on hand to oversee proceedings for the L&DTTL and the match was expertly umpired by Graham Rollinson. And what a match it proved to be, once again featuring two Bath Street sides, the third time this has happened in 5 seasons.

 

BSM 3, captained by Andrew Armstrong, was drawn as the home side and Andrew was joined by Keith Williams and Ian McElwee. Their opponents BSM 5, captained by Dave Noden who was joined by Darren Taylor and Ted Cramsie. It has to be said that BSM 3 were, perhaps, generously handicapped in comparison to BSM 5, starting the match with a 4 point advantage. But in truth it was probably only Andrew's handicap that was an little generous and an adjustment to that would have made very little difference to the final outcome.

 

The handicap advantage was quickly stretched to 37 points when Keith played to the top of his form in defeating Darren 21/4, 21/5 in the opening set. Darren actually played well with some brilliant retrieving, but Keith's consistent, powerful, top spin off both wings was too much for Darren and provided the spectators with some great entertainment.

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BSM 5 really needed to take a high number of points from Andrew to provide themselves with any chance of taking the match. Andrew faced Ted in the 2nd match of the evening and virtually confirmed BSM 3 would run out victors by matching Ted 39 points each. Ian played Dave in the 3rd match and managed squeezing out a narrow 42-35 win.

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These 3 sets fixed the tone for the evening. Keith continued to be head and shoulders above everyone, beating Dave and Ted comprehensively. Andrew kept things tight, losing by 4 points to Dave and 14 to Darren whilst Ian kept his head above water with victories over Ted and Darren.

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As the card shows, BSM 3 eventually won 402 - 299. But this score line does not really provide a true picture of the evening. The fact was that the quality of Keith Williams in the BSM 3 team could not be matched by the opponents. The large crowd of spectators created a brilliant atmosphere, supporting all 6 players to the full and showing their appreciation for the many great points played during the match.

 

The evening concluded with Marjorie presenting the cup to the victors followed by a nice buffet with tea and coffee. A great evening of high quality and well supported table tennis