MESSAGE FROM CLUB CHAIRMAN SHAUN NEWCOMB

As Club Chairman, I am delighted to be able to announce the launch of our new club website today, 1st May. The website was designed by Andrew Daish with inputs and help from the committee, especially Malcolm and Steve. Work has been going on since July 2011 and my thanks go to everybody involved. The website cost just over £200 to design and set up and there will be an ongoing annual cost of c£11 to renew the domain name (www.newmiltonttc.com). Your committee feels that this is money well spent and we hope that you agree once you see the website in all its glory.

This fulfills a commitment made in our Club Action Plan submitted to the ETTA in July 2010 as part of our successful application to become a Premier Clubmark club. We now join the growing ranks of forward-thinking clubs who have their own website and we hope that it will give New Milton Table Tennis Club a higher profile and attract more members.

We have arranged to have links to our new website from the BDTTA and Bournemouth Sports websites in advance of the launch and have already received a number of unsolicited favourable comments from those quarters:- “Really great website, well done. Very clear and easy to navigate”. “The NMTTC website looks great. Really impressive!”. We are proud of our efforts and hope that you will agree.

All New Milton Club members and friends who are on Malcolm’s email contacts list should receive an invitation to subscribe to the website. You just have to click on “Accept Invitation” to subscribe to receive notices of club news and events. You will then receive confirmation that you will receive an email notification when a new “post” is made to the website. You can unsubscribe at any time, but why would you want to when you can be kept informed of the club’s activities completely free of charge?

Andrew Daish will remain as “Administrator” of the site so if you have any problems in subscribing or have any queries at all, please give him a call on 01590 679268.

We want to keep the website as vibrant and up to date as possible and all of the committee members will have the facility to post items. Remember, this is the club’s website, not just the committee’s so if you can think of any areas that can be improved or would like to see other types of information, please put your thoughts down on an email and send them to me.

New Forest youngsters led the way at this year’s Hampshire Schools individual table tennis championships held at Waterside Table Tennis Club.

In the U11 girl’s competition Katie Holt, representing Brockenhurst Primary School, was undefeated and now goes on to represent the county in the national schools finals in Doncaster later this month.

The Waterside TTC, Southampton West and Bournemouth TTC starlet, has been playing for just two years and recently was ranked sixth nationally within her age group. At just nine years old she will probably be the youngest player at this years national championships.

In the Hants boy’s U11 competition New Milton Table Tennis Club’s Mathew Daish beat Jonathan McMullan from Whitely Junior School, Fareham, in a very close final of a high standard. Matthew won the first set 11-8, Jonathan won the next two sets 11-2 and 11-5, and then Matthew won the next set 11-9. With the match at two sets all it went into the deciding fifth set and with Jonathan 10- 6 up Matthew held his nerve to win six points in a row for a 12-10 victory. Matthew who was recently ranked 4th nationally within his age group will be joining Katie in Doncaster later this month.

There was a strong field of players in the U16 boys which was won by Josh Green representing Hounsdown School, who beat Jimmy Yeung of Priory School Portsmouth in a very exciting final which went to the fifth and final set. Yeung clawed his way back to win the fourth set 12-10, before Josh was the convincing winner with a final set 11-3 victory.

The Annual Tournaments of the Bournemouth and District Table Tennis league recently took place with twenty one players from the New Milton club taking part. The club’s only winning finalist was Steve Hemmings who won the Vets 50+ title. Frank Handy made it through to the Div 3 individuals final but was beaten by Lynwood’s Peter Collins. Julie Smillie & Sylvia Smith made it through to the Ladies Doubles final but were beaten by Kate Maksimenko (Winton YMCA) & Maggie White (North Bournemouth). Smillie also made it through to the Mixed Doubles final with Zoltan Karib-Barath, but also with no joy. Read the rest of this entry →

The New Milton Table Tennis Club A team lost the Times and Directory Cup Final for the second year running. This time they lost 3-5 to fellow Premier side Kinson B down at the neutral venue of Southbourne on Tuesday 20th March. In a most entertaining and thrilling final, Kinson B represented by Tom Stride (+12 handicap), Richard Davies (+7) and Darren Bellis (+12) overcame a strong New Milton A side featuring Brian Vibert (+4), Steve Hemmings (+6) and Philip Handy (+4).

Kinson got straight into their stride as Stride beat Hemmings, and Davies got the better of Milton’s captain Vibert giving Kinson a 2-0 lead before Handy pulled a game back to make it 2-1. In the fourth game, Davies attacked superbly against Hemmings’ defence and although Davies won 31-14 and 31-27 this did not reflect the tremendous rallies that took place between the two players. Davies had to work extremely hard with his forehand top-spin drives and drop-shots to beat Hemmings’ dogged defence. Handy then beat Stride which left Vibert to play Bellis. Vibert’s good all-round game eventually overcame a stubborn Bellis 30-31, 31-29 and 31-30, which made the match level at 3-3. The game of the evening then commenced between Davies and Handy who were both unbeaten so far. The match had it all, from two attacking players, with some outstanding fast controlled rallies and although Handy pegged back the handicap difference on many occasions, Davies finally won this enthralling game 31-29, 28-31 and 31-29. At 3-4 down, Milton had to win the next match to keep their cup hopes alive. It wasn’t to be however as Hemmings lost to Bellis to make the match score a 5-3 win to Kinson B. A most enthralling match, played in a friendly but competitive manner. Milton are hoping to make it third-time lucky next year!

In the final week of the Bournemouth and District Table Tennis league, the New Milton Club recorded six wins, two draws and just the two defeats. None of their teams gained promotion this year but pleasingly none were relegated, albeit their B team did have an uncomfortable couple of weeks towards the end of the season.

The B team (Zoltan Karib-Barath, Julie Smillie and Shaun Newcomb) secured their survival in Div 1 the previous week, which was a good job as they lost 2-8 to Ringwood A at Greyfriars in their last match. Karib-Barath won Milton’s only singles as Smillie and Newcomb drew rare blanks and Smillie and Karib-Barath won the doubles. Read the rest of this entry →

The New Milton Table Tennis Club improved on their last week’s return in the Bournemouth and District league as they won five matches, drew one and had four defeats. Club factotum Malcolm Floyd had cause for celebration as his first win in what seemed an eternity helped his B team to allay their relegation fears.

The B team needed to take a point off runaway leaders Bournemouth Sports H to keep their heads above water in Div 1 and captain Floyd chose just the right moment to break his four match duck. Floyd and his team mates Shaun Newcomb and Julie Smillie all beat Bourne’s Charlie Chan to snatch the precious point from a 3-7 defeat. As it happened, the two bottom teams also lost, which guaranteed Milton’s survival. Read the rest of this entry →

The New Milton Table Tennis Club had a reasonable return in the Bournemouth and District Table Tennis league as they won 4, drew 2 and lost 4. There were some star performances again but Julie Smillie’s first hat-trick of the campaign couldn’t have come at a better time to help out her struggling B team.

Div 1 saw the third from bottom B team (Julie Smillie, Zoltan Karib-Barath and Shaun Newcomb) ease their relegation worries as they beat basement boys Bournemouth Sports G 7-3 for the second time. Smillie (pronounced “Smiley”) played a blinder to come up with her first hat-trick of the campaign, Karib-Barath bagged a brace and Newcomb added one more to the scorecard. Read the rest of this entry →