Dear fellow club members – Please accept my apologies for the slight delay in my adding this post, sent to me at my request from Brian Bickell on 2nd Oct. – the phone call to which he refers and the subsequent call up for the national squad was the reason Brian and Olga could not attend our recent club social. Very well done Brian – please don’t be so modest and let us know when you’re No.1!
Last week I had a call at 11pm on Friday night to play for the 70+ England Vets team the following day in Cardiff due to the injury of one of the side. When I arrived our team had already beaten the Wales “B” side but had lost to Ireland.
I then teamed up with Keith Powell against Guernsey and we both won our singles and teamed up to win the doubles and the match 5-0. We then faced Wales “A” side with George Evans, ranked 2 in Great Britain, and Roger Thomas. Keith beat Roger, but I lost my two matches both 2-3. However we won the doubles, but the match was lost 2-3. In the group we were 3rd and we received a bronze medal for our efforts. The Isle of Man did not field a 70+ team.

Recently at the Vets Regional National Championships in Sunderland I beat the numbers 4 and 6 in the rankings to climb to 9th in the Great Britain rankings, my first time into single figures.

Looking at the latest 70+ ranking list and eliminating the non English and 70 to 74 aged players I am now 2nd in the list with Fred Lockwood (world champion in Rio in 2010 and of the film “Ping Pong” fame) in the number one spot.

Brian Bickell.