Bath Street Marine Table Tennis Club
A Table Tennis England PremierClub
News Release - BSMTTC News 135
Dateline: 22 January 2022
3 Dave's through!
It was great to see Dave McMahon back in action for the club this week after several weeks out through injury. He joined with his two fellow Dave's, Dave Stoddern and Dave Noden, to represent BSM 6 in Round 2 of the Liverpool League, Frank Murphy Veterans Handicap Cup, against Wavertree Labour 1 at Marine last Thursday. And what an excellent match it proved to be. By far the closest of the 4 matches involving the club this week in this cup competition.
With very little difference in the strength of the respective sides, just 29 points separated them on handicap at the start, in favour of the Wavertree side. The BSM captain, Dave Stoddern, stepped up to take on the first set against the visiting No.1, Jet Hou. And what a great start, Dave taking both games and 10 points off of the handicap difference. In fact, over the evening, Dave played a true captain's innings winning all 6 of his games played. A major factor in the outcome of the match. Very close games continued, but after 4 sets the handicap deficit had been eradicated. The Wavertree side fought back such that after 7 sets honours were exactly even! Back to the table came captain Dave. His best performance of the night gave the home team a clear lead, all Dave Noden had to do was hold on in the final set and the match was theirs. He did and the match was sealed by a margin of 23 points. An excellent match, with the BSM team moving through to the next round.
On the left: BSM 6 - Dave Stoddern, Dave Noden & Dave McMahon. On the right: Wavertree Labour 1 - George Liu, Terry Jones & Jet Hou.
And above right, the match score card.
And there was more success....
The week started with the BSM 1 team visiting Sefton Park on Monday. They faced Sefton Park 5 who had already disposed of one BSM team in the previous round by the narrowest of margins. Unfortunately the BSM team were not able to field their best two players, but hoped their handicap advantage of 125 points might give them the edge. The Sefton team had however strengthened their team from the previous round and it showed in the first two sets. The visitors had no answer. So much so, that after just 4 sets the advantage had turned in favour of the home side. The match continued in that vein with the Sefton Park side winning all 9 sets to record a massive 117 point win. Not a good night for the BSM side.
Also on Monday the all division 1 player line-up of BSM 3 visited Cadwa. In these handicap matches they say that quality will always shine through and there was no doubt that the BSM side had the quality line-up for this match with three classy division 1 players in the team. And, as you would expect the effect was similar to the BSM 1 match, but this time the BSM side won all 9 sets. So, although they started 78 points behind, by the end of the match they were a colossal 121 points ahead! These two matches show that sometimes it just doesn't matter what the handicap is, quality will usually win through.
A different style of BSM team completed the quartet of teams in action this week. A very mixed BSM 4, led by Andrew Armstrong, and including the club's top player, Keith Williams, faced a visit to Bootle YMCA 2. The interesting thing about this match was that 1 of the Bootle players had played against BSM in the previous round but for a different Bootle team, and lost! So should not have been eligible to play in this match! In the event, it made no difference as once again quality shone through! The BSM team started 58 points adrift on handicap and finished a comfortable 63 points ahead with all 3 BSM players contributing, although the quality of Keith Williams was the clear factor turning the match in favour of the visiting BSM side.
So, overall it was a good week for BSM in the Vets Cup with 3 teams through to the last 8. What's the odds on a derby match in the quarter finals?
