The D team juniors (plus leader Paul Lunan) are still flying high in Division 3, having dropped only 11 points in their run of 9 straight league wins, and looking as though they could well gain promotion by the end of February.

Also in Division 3, the E team are holding their own, while the youngsters of the F team are learning rapidly that competitive play is quite different from practice, but the improvement is already beginning to show.

In the 2nd Division, the A team’s early promise has faltered somewhat due to illness and next year will be difficult without John Goulding, and with Jim Irving available only from the end of February. Thankfully Colin Fyles will be back in action hoping to resume his 100% winning streak.

The bad news is that both the B and C teams are struggling near the foot of Division 2, and will need to make a sustained improvement over the next 3 months to stay in the division. Whilst we do want the D team to win promotion, we certainly don’t want the B and C teams to replace them in the bottom tier. The time for action is now, while there may still be enough matches available to recover lost ground - watch this space!

You can download the latest league tables and results from the District website.

In the knockouts, the C and D teams are the sole survivors, each having progressed to the 2nd round in both the Anon Plate and Gunson Plate competitions.

The practice evenings have once again been well attended, considering most members have match commitments in the same week.

The second half of the season starts on 5th January, giving everyone plenty of time to recover from the festivities! And on that note, may I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year for 2009.

Alan
Secretary

We’d love to see you there.

Gunson Cup Draw

Gunson Plate Draw

Home team captains to contact opponents and offer two possible dates.

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.

Anon Cup, 2nd Round

Anon Plate, 1st Round

All matches to be played during the week beginning 24 November 2008, and results should reach the Fixture Secretary by 1 December.

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.

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.

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.

Home team captains (B, C and D teams) to contact opponents and offer two possible dates.