There was a break in the Bournemouth and District Table Tennis league programme last week as the week was given over to the Preliminary Round of the Annual Times & Directory Handicap Cup competition. Three of the New Milton Club’s teams were drawn into the Preliminary Round and they all made it through to Round One.

The Cup provides an interesting diversion from the league programme in that it enables teams from across all divisions to be drawn against each other in a handicapped competition, best of three matches up to 31, with no doubles.

The B and C teams (both from Div1) had a relatively easy passage as they both won their matches by 5-1, beating Bransgore (Div 1) and Merton H (Div 4) respectively. However, the G team’s match against Div 1’s Lynwood B went right down to the wire and the Div 3 outfit just scraped it by 5-4. It all came down to 14 year old Peter Daish’s (playing off +19) match against Lynwood’s Colin Milton (+11) and it was 28-all in the third and final set of the evening. Daish maturely put the two division differential behind him to win the next three points to take his side through to the next round.

Result details:

New Milton B (Div 1) 5 Bransgore (Div 1) 1

Julie Smillie (+13), 2

Malcolm Floyd (+14), 1

Shaun Newcomb (+13), 2

New Milton C (Div 1) 5 Merton H (Div 4) 1

Martin Jerome (+6), 1

James Lewis (+11), 2

Max De Kment (+12), 2

Lynwood B (Div 1) 4 New Milton G (Div 3) 5

Peter Daish (+19), 3

Bobo Jiang (+20), 2

Andrew Daish (+21), 0

The B, C and G teams now join the the A, D, E, F, J and K teams in the draw for Round One which is to be played in Week Commencing 3^rd December. The Premier’s A team will be itching to have another bash at the title, having come runners-up in the last two years.