Mixed fortunes for Cippenham teams

Three Cippenham teams have been engaged in British League action over the past two weekends. Last weekend the veteran’s team travelled to Hereford for the first weekend in the Veterans’ British League while the boys’ and girls’ teams were at Wolverhampton a week earlier in the Junior British League.

Veterans’ British League

A good all-round team performance saw Cippenham win three of their five matches in Men’s Division 2A of the Veterans’ British League and those six points puts them in third place. Bribar Fusion lead the table with a maximum ten points while Cippenham are just one point behind second placed Holme Park Developments 2 with all to play for at Doncaster in the second weekend in the new year.

The closeness of the division and the matches showed as four of Cippenham’s matches were decided 4-2 and fourteen of the thirty individual matches needed a fifth end to decide them at 3-2.

Charlie Childs only played in two matches and he managed to win three of his four singles yet his brace against Holme Park counted for nothing as Cippenham went down 4-2. Mike Rhodes and Paul Baker both won four of their eight matches for a fifty percent return: Rhodes starring with two in a 4-2 win over local rivals Ashford while Baker performed the same trick as Cippenham beat Norwich 4-2. In the third 4-2 victory, against the Seasiders of Blackpool, it was Roger Hookey who starred with two wins. The sequence of 4-2 results was spoiled with a 5-1 defeat against leaders Bribar Fusion.

Junior British League

The junior teams did not fare so well. The boys disappointingly took only three points in Division 2A of the Junior British League to lie in fifth position while the inexperienced girls’ team, who were all making their debuts in the competition, lost all their matches in Division 3.

The boys’ team trounced bottom team Sheffield 5-1 and drew 3-3 with second-placed Dumfries 3-3. Apart from those highlights there were defeats 4-2 against Ael-y-Bryn, 5-1 to Burton Uxbridge 2 and 6-0 to leaders DHS Greenhouse Progress 3. Edward Mitchell and Ruihao Zhang both won four of their ten matches while Andrew Linz was successful three times.

The girls managed to get one set each against York Road, Waterside B and Morpeth School B for 5-1 results but were beaten 6-0 by both Morpeth School A and Spicer/York Gardens.

Stephanie Mitchell won twice, Emma Elliston once but Angela Oetiker emerged from the weekend winless.