What do you think about illegal serving in matches?

November 18, 2008 — Alan

Are you one of the “old school”, maybe brought up playing with a hard bat, or pimples out/no sponge? Do you serve by sweeping the ball straight off your hand? Or do you throw the ball backwards onto your bat from a cupped hand?

Or are you someone who sticks to the letter of the law, throwing the ball up high and straight, without any spin, and giving both your opponent and the umpire a clear view of the bat and ball at all times?

In practice, I guess most of us fall between these two extremes, but there are players out there (yes, in our League, and even in our club) whose game seems to depend on gaining an unfair advantage from serves which don’t comply with the Service Law as adopted by the ITTF and the ETTA.

The question is – does it matter? Does it matter in a local league such as ours, or is it only relevant in the Olympics? Is it more important that younger players serve legally because they will be forced to do so when playing for their county or country? If young players have to conform, why shouldn’t everyone?

And where does the responsibility for enforcement lie – with the coaches, or the team captains, or the umpires, or the League management committee? Should the League be making greater efforts to encourage legal serving? Would it be a sign of such intent if the Service Law was reinstated in next year’s League handbook? Should the League tell clubs to enforce the rules rigorously both internally and when umpiring matches? Or should it simply “turn a blind eye”?

You can let us know your views on this always thorny topic in two ways: firstly VOTE in our new Poll on the left of the page, and secondly by submitting a Comment in reply to this post. Please, do let us know your views.

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Latest League Tables

November 17, 2008 — admin

There is a link in the left-hand menu (2008/9 League Tables) so you can see how well your team is doing after 5 or 6 matches.

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Anon Cup & Plate Draws

November 14, 2008 — Alan

The draws for the Anon Cup and Plate competitions are as follows:

(more…)

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Quick learners, those Argyle youngsters!

November 13, 2008 — Alan

It’s only a week since the juniors of Argyle ‘C’ held the ‘old men’ of Southport ‘C’ to a draw in the first round of the Gunson Cup, but they haven’t half improved since then. Last night, with an early start so they could get home to bed at a reasonable hour (school this morning!), they showed just how much they have learned in 7 days. The teams were exactly the same as last week, so there could be no excuses by playing substitutes, etc.

It was Andy Hickey’s misfortune to be the one who arrived first and had to face both Nathan Thistlethwaite and Tom O’Malley in quick succession. Whether they had been given special coaching lessons, or eaten a double helping of porridge, we’re not sure, but they certainly showed they meant business, with Nathan improving by 15 points and Tom by 11 points compared with the previous week. This was no fluke, though, as first Mike McCormack (+12) and then Paul Jervis (+13) consolidated the Argyle fight back against Alan Nolan and Tom Banton respectively and by half-time, Argyle had improved by an astonishing 51 points!

Another steady game by Mike McCormack retained his single point advantage over Southport’s Tom Taylor, and then Nathan showed once again how much he likes the home conditions with a gain of 18 points against Tom Banton. We thought we might still miraculously save the game if Tom and Alan could win by 100 points difference; Tom Taylor did his best to that end, with a very tense 55-10 victory. However, on recalculating the scores it was clear that Argyle had already won the tie, and the final game was now academic, much to the relief of all concerned! The final scoreline was Argyle ‘C’ 467 points, Southport ‘C’ 402.

The match was once again played in an excellent atmosphere, and we would like to thank Angus Taylor and his juniors for their warm welcome and hospitality, and wish them all the best in the remainder of the competition.

Details of the replay can be downloaded from here.

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Hats off to the Handicapping committee!

November 5, 2008 — Alan

Tonight’s Gunson Cup match between Southport ‘C’ and Argyle ‘C’ (+180pts) finished in a Draw, and will be replayed next Wednesday at Argyle.

Beginning with an advantage of 180 points, the young division 3 team needed to stay within 4 or 5 points per game, on average, of their division 2 opponents to have a chance of winning the match. Angus Taylor, the Argyle captain/manager chose the two number ones for the first encounter and it was soon clear why. Star of the show was young Mike McCormack, doing much more than staying close – in fact beating Alan Nolan by 46 points to 45. What a start!

On the other table, Tom Banton, after losing the first game 9-11 to Nathan Thistlethwaite, woke up and eventually won by 53 points to 26 to restore some semblance of normality. Most of the other games went more or less as expected, and we were then left with the final match – Tom Taylor against Mike McCormack. This was already in play as we added up the scores, and although we knew the scores were going to be close, we hadn’t told Tom and Mike. Mike finally won this contest 49 to 48, and a last reckoning produced a final result of 419 points each.

Never having been in this position before, we looked up the handbook (rule 32c) to find that the only way of deciding the winner was to replay the match at the opponents’ venue, and if that is also a draw to continue replaying matches until a winner emerges (rule 32d). We could be in for a long winter!

Details of the match can be downloaded from here.

Thanks to Angus Taylor for bringing a very friendly team of promising juniors and well done to Argyle – we look forward to the [first?] replay next week.

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Another kind of game?

November 2, 2008 — Alan

Last week I organised a match with a difference! As well as playing league table tennis in Southport, I also play some ‘social table tennis’ at the Aughton & Ormskirk U3A and to celebrate our 5th birthday, we invited other local U3As to a challenge match, the winners to host the event the following year.

Each of the four U3As (Maghull, Mawdesley, Upholland and our own) fielded two teams of 4 players (2 men and 2 women) for what turned out to be a most enjoyable afternoon, with 30 sets of 21-up being played in a spirit of keen competition and sportsmanship. After a mini-league stage and a knock-out stage, Mawdesley  ‘A’ eventually beat Aughton & Ormskirk ‘B’ quite easily in the final to become the first winners of the trophy.

Tea, coffee and biscuits were provided throughout the afternoon as part of the celebration week and we were most grateful for them.

An interesting spin-off is that Upholland U3A will now be setting up a regular table tennis group, and we wish them all the best with that. Maybe by next year they will be strong contenders for the trophy.

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