The New Milton Table Tennis Club’s teams could only come up with three wins out of nine matches in the Bournemouth and District league last week, but one of them was a huge improvement on a first-round loss by the H team.

First time around the H team were trounced 2-8 by Winton YMCA C down at the YMCA hall, but Milton were clearly missing captain Les Smith who played in the return match at Mudeford Wood. An unsuspecting Winton didn’t know what hit them as they were battered 9-1 thanks to hat-tricks from Smith and Malcolm Douglas (pictured below), only their second full-houses of the season. George Roberts bagged a brace and then watched Smith and Douglas take the doubles fairly comfortably in the end.

In Div 1, the B team (Brian Bickell, John Millward, Zoltan Karip-Barath & Shaun Newcomb) did the double over Breamore with a 7-3 win at Mudeford Wood, courtesy of yet another hat-trick from England veteran Brian Bickell. The club’s only other win came in Div 3 as the G team (Simon Golding, Simon Daish & Bev Scott-Johns) repeated their 7-3 win over Merton H, this time down at Mudeford Wood. This victory, their ninth in a row, pulls them further away at the top of the table as they are now on 53 points against second-placed Merton G’s 38 points. With only four weeks of the playing season left to go, promotion to Div 2 looks assured.

The club’s most disappointing result of the week came in Div 1 as the struggling C team added further to their woes as they were unable to get a full team to Merton on time. Julie Smillie arrived in good time and valiantly won two of her three matches against Merton E which she played straight off. By the time the other two players eventually arrived, Merton E had claimed the match, which went down as a 10-0 defeat under the rules. Just for good measure, Milton were deducted four penalty points, which virtually seals their demotion to Div 2.  Full results details are below:-

DIVISION 1

New Milton B 7 Breamore 3

(John Millward 1, Brian Bickell 3, Zoltan Karip-Barath 2)

Merton E 10 New Milton C 0

Match claimed by Merton E.

DIVISION 2

Ringwood A 7 New Milton D 3

(Chris Pusey 2, Terry Jenvey 1, Norma Millward 0)

Broadstone B 6 New Milton E 4

(Frank Handy 2, Peter Daish 1, Mike Roberts 0)

DIVISION 3

Ringwood C 6 New Milton F 4

(Sylvia Smith 1, Eddie Tompkins 1, Mike Roberts 2)

New Milton G 7 Merton H 3

(Simon Golding 3, Simon Daish 2, Bev Scott-Johns 1)

DIVISION 4

New Milton H 9 Winton YMCA C 1

(George Roberts 2, Les Smith 3, Malcolm Douglas 3)

DIVISION 5

Merton K 8 New Milton J 2

(Geoff Biggs 1, Lynn Willrich 1, James Harper 0)

New Milton K 2 Bmth Sports N 8

(Stuart Burton 1, Richard Clampin 1)