News & Views from the Colchester Table Tennis League
with Press Officer Martyn Green

19th September-2007
Colchester Juniors Excel at Essex Trials

The six juniors that represented Colchester at last weekend’s Essex Assessment Trials at BATTS, Harlow can justifiably feel proud of themselves following some excellent performances. Holly Stubbings once again finished first in the Under 18 Girls, winning all six of her games without dropping a set including beating the promising Chelmsford pair of Stevie Pell and Hannah Pitt. This means she will represent Essex in the County Premier League along with England representative Sara Wang who disappointingly did not attend the trials.

In the Under 18 Boys Greg Green and Mike Shore finished seventh and eighth respectively. Both were somewhat unlucky to be drawn in groups where only one player went through to the top group where the other two groups two qualified. On top of this Green was paired with the top seed Emran Hussein and duly beat the other four in his group. He did come through a scare in a tight five set match against fellow Colchester player Lawrence Wilcox who held two match points in the final end. Green then lost to Hussein in four sets to finish second in the group. Mike Shore faired much the same only losing to eventual winner Mark Mulley as he also finished runner-up. This meant both Green and Shore qualified for the same group and Shore was once again impressive winning all his games which left a final showdown against Green who only dropped one to Rayne’s Andrew McEwan. The winner would finish seventh overall as the pair met for the fourth time in as many years. In a titanic match Green triumphed in five sets, the first four shared with only a two point margin in each! This means both players should qualify to represent the Essex second team, a commendable performance that had the competition rules favoured them, could have been even better. This may be taken into consideration when final rankings are decided. Lawrence Wilcox was unlucky as his performance tailed off following three defeats that went the full distance of five sets, all of which he held two match points! He finished sixteenth with Jon Ward a respectable twenty-first.

In the Cadets (Under 15’s) Andrew Harvey, competing for the first time finished twenty-fifth after taking his initial Group winner, Clacton’s Matthew Wright all the way he struggled but won the his group winning five straight games to complete an excellent weekend for Colchester players.

In the Colchester and District League H20 Rowhedge A sent an ominous warning to their rivals whitewashing new boys St Mary’s B 10-0. Their ‘B’ team were not far behind beating a strong Walton B 8-2 with Antony Greenwood and Michael Andrews undefeated including fine wins over Ian Vine and Colin Stallwood. Walton’s A team made amends with a good 6-4 win over Dedham A despite Mike Wright’s fighting maximum for Dedham as Peter Burrows and Vine again, won two. Gt Horkesley A and Rayne A shared the spoils in a 5-5 draw with youngster Andrew McEwan winning his three including a good win against league debutant Jimmy Farrow from Washbrook who won two. Gary Young was another player in good form completing a maximum for St Mary’s A against H20 Rowhedge C as they drew 5-5.