Opportunity knocks.....

Some may remember this British television and radio talent show which provided a platform to fame for numerous acts, including Spike Milligan and Frankie Vaughan. In the table tennis world opportunity also knocks from time to time. You may recall a recent post on our Club Facebook page (12 November) recounting an evening of fabulous junior table tennis which brought together juniors from BSM and Maghull table tennis club's who were trying out to represent Liverpool League in a forthcoming inter-league tournament. Well the first round of matches in the junior section of the Lancashire & Cheshire Table Tennis League took place on Sunday 3 December, and 4 of our club juniors were given the opportunity to participate along with 3 juniors from Maghull.

It proved to be a very full day, especially so when at the start of the day the organisers advised all participants that the two days of play originally planned were to be reduced to 1 day, so that all matches had to be completed on the day! This presented particular problems for the Liverpool team as some players had been held back and designated to take the second day in January! Some nifty footwork and telephone calls managed to bring in 3 of the 4 players held back for the January fixtures. Sadly it meant 1 missed out. But opportunities will continue to arise......

As for the table tennis itself, it really was an excellent opportunity for the 7 Liverpool juniors who took part, four from BSM - Henry Sinker, Ivan Maksym, Scott French and Kai Morgan, and 3 from Maghull - Owen Miller and Adwin & Aldrin George. There were two divisions, each with 6 teams so it meant five matches would be played by each team in the course of the day.

The standard in the top division was high, with some of the players being up to 1st division standard. This made it really tough for Henry, Owen, Adwin & Aldrin who played in the first division, but who locally are currently only playing at a level significantly lower than that! However, according to Paul Hutchings who looked after and coached the Div 1 team, all 4 players put in a tremendous effort and picked up games where they could. Overall, this team were not able to win any of their matches but gave a very good account of themselves.

Ivan, Scott & Kai played in the second team, and were managed and coached by James Haskell. Once again there were some very good players in this division but their standard was much nearer that of the Liverpool players. There were some terrific matches in this division with the Liverpool juniors coming away with 4 wins out of 5 matches. This was an excellent performance, so much so that at the end of the day things were so close that the organisers had to take the cards away to work out who had won the division whether it was the team from the Liverpool League or a team from the Wigan League! Paul Hutchings says he believes that Liverpool have won this division! Whatever the outcome it was an exceptional performance from the Liverpool boys.

When opportunity knocks you have to grasp it with both hands, and there is no doubt that these seven juniors who represented Liverpool really took hold of this opportunity and performed to the very best of their ability. A great day of junior table tennis and some terrific performances from all of the Liverpool juniors.

In our pictures below, we have:

Picture 1 - Owen Miller & Henry Sinker who played for Liverpool 1 in Div 1 along with Adwin & Aldrin George - seen in picture 2.

In pictures 3 and 4, we have James Haskell (Coach) with Scott French & Ivan Maksym and (pic 4) Kai Morgan, who played for Liverpool 2 in Div 2. And picture 5 the 3 boys who played in the Liverpool 2 team, and look to have come top of the division.