Overall, it was a really strange week in the Bournemouth and District League for the New Milton Club, but suffice to say their teams improved on seven defeats out of nine matches in the first round by losing just the five matches this time around. The other results were three wins and a draw.

The club’s most spectacular turn-around came in Div 1 as the C team (Svet Ignatov, Zoltan Ordog & Matt Winter) banished the memory of their first-round whitewash at the hands of division leaders Lynwood A by holding them to a 5-5 draw in their own back yard. Ignatov (pictured below) and Ordog showed how much they were missed from the first encounter as they bagged a brace apiece. An out of sorts Winter was unable to improve on his first-round duck, but he combined well with Ignatov to snatch the doubles to force the draw.

In Div 5, the J team (Lynn Willrich, Geoff Biggs & Elliott Storr-Smith) improved on a 4-6 first round defeat by beating the high-flying Shamrock C by 7-3, but Shamrock did turn up a player short which gifted Milton three games. Up in Div 2, the E team (Frank Handy, Peter Daish & James Lewis) beat basement boys North Bmth 7-3 home at the Grange having been held to an away draw first time around. Lewis repeated his hat-trick, so it was captain Handy’s brace of wins which made all the difference as he didn’t play in their first meeting.

The A team (Steve Hemmings, Brian Vibert & Matthew Ware) weren’t expecting too much from their return match against league leaders Bmth Sports A as they had previously lost 1-9 away at Chapel Gate. It was a slightly improved scoreline of 2-8 at the Grange, but it was the more noteworthy as teenage starlet Matthew Daish got the better of league Coaching Officer Stephen Foster who had only previously dropped one match until then.

The Club was involved in three “whitewashes”, only one of which went their way. The G team (Bev Scott-Johns, Simon Golding & Simon Daish) were looking forward their return match against Bmth Sports K whom they had previously beaten 8-2, but the Bourne failed to show at Mudeford Wood, so Milton claimed the match. The Dees went down 0-10 away against Lynwood B and the K team lost 0-10 away against Winton YMCA F, not helped by the fact that Milton were a player short.

Sylvia Smith helped spare her F team’s blushes in Div 3 as she scraped a win over five sets against Broadstone C’s Alan Lo (the scoreline says it all at 11-7, 8-11, 12-14, 12-10, 12-10) to make it the slightly more respectable 1-9.  Full details are below:-

PREMIER

New Milton A 2 Bmth Sports A 8

(Steve Hemmings 1, Brian Vibert 0, Matthew Daish 1)

DIVISION 1

Lynwood A 5 New Milton C 5

(Svet Ignatov 2, Matt Winter 0, Zoltan Ordog 2)

DIVISION 2

Lynwood B 10 New Milton D 0

(Terry Jenvey 0, Norma Millward 0, Bev Scott-Johns 0)

New Milton E 7 North Bmth 3

(Frank Handy 2, Peter Daish 1, James Lewis 3)

DIVISION 3

Broadstone C 9 New Milton F 1

(Malcolm Nash 0, Sylvia Smith 1, John Parkhouse 0)

New Milton G 10 Bmth Sports K 0

(Match awarded to Milton as Bmth Sports K failed to show)

DIVISION 4

New Milton H 4 Bmth Sports L 6

(George Roberts 1, Keith Kensley 0, Les Smith 2)

DIVISION 5

New Milton J 7 Shamrock C 3

(Geoff Biggs 1, Elliott Storr-Smith 1, Lynn Willrich 1)

Winton YMCA F 10 New Milton K 0

(Stuart Burton 0, Richard Clampin 0)