The New Milton Table Tennis Club marked the end of the first round of matches in the Bournemouth and District league with four draws out of their eight matches, two of the ties being forced through the doubles. The other results were two wins and two defeats.

In the Premier, the B team drew 5-5 against Merton B at Mudeford Wood courtesy of a brace apiece from super-sub Gerard Redman (pictured below), who was playing up from Div 1, and regular John Hook who combined with John Millward to win the doubles.

Div 2 saw the E team also draw against a Merton team at Mudeford Wood, but the doubles would have given them a victory over Merton F. Peter Daish came up with his fourth hat-trick of the campaign and Simon Golding and Clive Pitts chipped in with one apiece to make it 5-4. Golding and Pitts struggled in the first end of the doubles, losing 2-11, then combined more fluently but still lost the next two 10-12 and 8-11 to settle for the draw.

The club’s other two draws both came in Div 4 where the table-topping F team lost their 100% record as they drew against close rivals Bmth Sports K down at Chapel Gate. It could have been much worse as Milton, who were missing star player Steve Cheesman through injury, went 0-4 down but won four out of the next five singles matches making it 4-5. Captain Malcolm Nash paired up with Ian Linney for the doubles and they won the first two ends 11-5 and 11-9, wobbled a bit in the third to lose 8-11, then got it back together to take the fourth 11-4 to secure a hard-fought draw. After the match, a relieved Captain Nash commented “In truth it felt like we had won and we kept the status quo with our rivals and remain unbeaten in the first half of the season. We did not want to lose our top spot on the final game of the first half, but a close call to a good team”.

The H team’s draw came away against Nimrod B where the doubles would have given Milton the victory. Dave Strike and John Childs bagged a brace apiece and captain Lynn Willrich added one more to the tally to make it 5-4. Milton were quite hopeful of the win as Strike and Childs had won their previous doubles matches, but they narrowly lost the first two ends 9-11, 9-11. They rallied to sneak the third 14-12 but lost their way a bit in the fourth to lose 7-11 and stomach the draw.

The club’s two wins came at the opposite ends of the league as the A team whitewashed Bmth Sports B 10-0 in their own back yard in the Premier, and down in Div 5 the J team remain unbeaten over five matches by beating Nimrod D 7-3 home at the Grange.  Full results details are below:-

PREMIER
Bmth Sports B 0 New Milton A 10
(Brian Vibert 3, Russell Wilson 3, Doug Gerrish 3)

New Milton B 5 Merton B 5
(John Millward 0, John Hook 2, Gerard Redman 2)

DIVISION 1
Merton E 6 New Milton C 4
(Frank Handy 2, Gerard Redman 1, Simon Daish 1)

Bmth Sports D 8 New Milton D 2
(Chris Pusey 0, Dave Cuddon 0, Terry Jenvey 2)

DIVISION 2
New Milton E 5 Merton F 5
(Simon Golding 1, Clive Pitts 1, Peter Daish 3)

DIVISION 4
Bmth Sports K 5 New Milton F 5
(Ian Linney 1, Malcolm Nash 2, Sylvia Smith 1)

Nimrod B 5 New Milton H 5
(Dave Strike 2, Lynn Willrich 1, John Childs 2)

DIVISION 5
New Milton J 7 Nimrod D 3
(Keith Kensley 2, Geoff Biggs 2, Malcolm Douglas 2)