For the fifth consecutive year the New Milton Table Tennis Club ran a Pairs competition at Mudeford Wood Community Centre, a pair being a 2-player team and ran from late May until the end of August. The event was open to both club and non-club players. The Pairs League consisted of eight teams and each team was named after an historical or contemporary fighting force. Teams played each other twice, once at home and then notionally once away. The day’s matches were played at a single venue on the same night.

Team names were: Sailors, Soldiers, Marines, Airmen, Vikings, Saxons, Romans and Normans. Each team member played two singles and one doubles, each game being the best of 5 ends. One point was awarded for each end/ (set) won up to 11. The final match score was calculated by totalling the number of sets won by each team over the duration of the evening.

The Airmen finished the tournament as Pairs’ winners with 154 points, the Vikings achieving a strong runners-up position with 149 points. The Soldiers finished in 3^rd position with 148 points after an excellent team performance. In 2016 the top two positions were reversed.

The most nail-biting session of the Pairs was in week 14 when the Airmen, who were in first place with 149 points, were drawn against their old rivals the Vikings, who were in third place with 134 points, and the Soldiers who were third with 138 points, were drawn against the Romans with 55 points. The outcome was that the Vikings won their final match 15 – 5 and the Soldiers won theirs 10 – 8. The game between Jack Trafford and Ben Greene was critical in securing the title for the Airmen. It was a thrilling five set match which contrasted Jack’s brilliant serve and attack against Ben’s superb defence and footwork. Jack eventually came out as the winner but by winning 2 sets Ben had done more than enough to secure the title for the Airmen.

Many congratulations to Gerard Redman and Ben Greene on an excellent team performance throughout the summer months. It was difficult tracking the team down to present their award, but the Sandy Fagan Memorial Trophy was eventually presented to Gerard (pictured below) at the club night on Sunday 1^st October. Sandy was the former club secretary who sadly passed away in November 2015.

Finally I would like to say thank you to all those people who entered the tournament, helped me with administration and setting up / putting away equipment. I hope we can repeat this event next year.

Once again congratulations to the winning team and runners-up and thanks to everyone for your continued support.

BM Scott-Johns