Week Commencing 11th April 2005

Swindon Table Tennis: The Pickett Trophy

The Pickett Trophy is Swindon's main team handicap event, held as a knock-out tournament over a number of months. Each player is given a rating based on their performance in the league (the lower the rating the better the player). The ratings for the team are added up to give a handicap for the night, and then any points won are added to the handicap to give the final scores.

Semi Final: Sanford Link A 560 / GWRSA C 534.

The experienced division one team GWRSA ‘C’ faced a mixture a players from three divisions from Sanford Link in a tense and eventful evening.

GWR, who already had an 83 points deficit to make up, found their task even harder when in the first match, Dave Morgan (Sanford) from Division 3 overcame Chris Howell (GWR) 21-17, 21-14. However, GWR recovered well as John Carter beat Ethan Gunton (Division 4) 21-8, 21-11.

The closest fixture on paper was the third match, as Ashley Hilton of Sanford took on Paul Sore of GWR (both Division One), and so it turned out as they halved the match, 21-13, 13-21. Gunton then took on Howell, and in a much improved performance, Gunton took a set off the higher ranked player, 6-21, 21-16, with some quality offensive play.

The next match was very entertaining as Sore and Morgan served up long exciting rallies, with terrific defence from Sore and variation from Morgan, as the GWR man eventually saw (no pun intended) Morgan off, 21-14, 22-20. The lead was being gradually whittled away by the away team, and this continued as Hilton then lost to Carter 21-14, 21-19 in another all division one pairing.

Gunton then took on Sore and once again, gave a very good account of himself against a higher ranked opponent, losing 21-15, 21-16 in another superb exhibition of long rallies, with Sore often ten feet away from the table. The penultimate match saw Howell and Hilton serve up a feast of counter hitting as Howell eventually triumphed 21-18, 21-16.

The last match paired Morgan and Carter, Division 3 against Division 1, with the Sanford man needing only 19 points over the two legs to see his team to victory. Carter charged into a 6-1 lead in the first leg but through sheer determination, Morgan eventually got back to lose by only 21-17. With only two points needed in the second leg, Morgan comfortably managed to get past his target, and the evening finished with Morgan winning 21-17.

The overall result was a 560 to 534 points victory for Sanford Link A, who go forward to meet GWRSA A in the final later this week. Commiserations to a sporting GWRSA C team who fought to the last.

Report by Andy Hurley