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| Division 1 South Ellenborough Team
Ellenborough regain Premiership
status !!! Ellenborough went in to the last weekend (played at
Cippenham Table Tennis club in Slough) 3 points ahead of the rest of the
field. Their nearest rivals (Progress 2 and Plymouth) had the easier games
and this was always going to be a struggle. Saturday matches First match on was Ellenborough’s Jimmy Walsh who had
beaten Satchell in their last meeting. Unfortunately the pressure was
evident in Jimmy and he lost a disappointing 3 games to zero. Second match on was Ellenborough number 1 Gary Tendler
against PSP’s Eddie Roofe. Eddie adopts an awkward left handed game which
initially proved too difficult for Gary as he saw himself slumped to a 2-0
deficit. The third game looked dead and buried and Ellenborough
looked in real trouble before a well planned “timeout” seemed to turn
the game in Gary’s favour winning the next two legs in a row. This
set up a real “dogfight” in the last game with Gary just coming through
11-9 with thunderous applause coming from the Ellenborough bench !! Next match on was Matthew Spero for Ellenborough
against Tim O’mahoney of PSP. This game was at a fairly important stage as
we needed to impose our authority on the match. This was a battle of the
left handers both adopting tricky serves and a viscous third ball attack
strategy which at times was similar to a big serving tennis match. Again the match swayed one way and then the other.
Finally through sheer determination Matthew Spero of Ellneborough came
through and put Ellenborough 2-1 up. The experienced and reliable Simon Philipz was next on
for Ellenborough. Simon has proved to be the most consistent player for
Ellenborough over the years and with Simon’s two winged attack this game
was to be no exception with Simon defeating Dave Richards of PSP 3 games to
zero. Four further games in this match went to the fifth end
with Ellenborough coming through as overall match winners by 6 games to
two!! Unfortunately for us our two nearest rivals also won their first match
so we still had it all to to do !! The next match for us was against second placed
Progress 2. Jon Kauffman of Progress had already made it clear that his big
aim was to defeat Ellenborough and win the division and it was no surprise
that Jon turned out an incredibly strong side consisting of: a world ranked
UAE player, Noah Essomba (Marco Essomba’s brother), Darek Zurowski (a top
100 polish player and James Sprackling (previously ranked inside Englands
top 100). With Ellenborough missing their number 1 Swedish player
(Jon Nilsson) we were almost resigned to losing the match from the start.
Somebody however had forgotten to mention this to Gary Tendler as inspired
by the thought of top flight Table Tennis next season Gary played his best
Table Tennis of the season defeating the Progress UAE player 11- 9 in the fifth
end. Both Progress and Ellenborough were cheering
frantically the whole way in a tremendous atmosphere. Jimmy Walsh was no
match for Noah Essomba (brother of Marco Essomba (a top ten England player)
and went down 3 games to zero. At 1 game all, things went from bad to worse for
Ellenborough as Progress rattled off the next four games in a row (Matthew Spero on the receiving end of two
losses) before Jimmy Walsh
ended the run with a fine fifth end win against Progress number 3 Darek
Zurowski. Simon Philipz completed his games with a win over James
Sprackling to finish the match at 5-3 to Progress 2. This was no surprise to
Ellenborough as without their number 1 John Nilson from Sweden this loss was
always on the cards particularly as Jon Kauffman (The Progress manager) had
made it clear his intentions were to play his best team against us to stop
us from winning the title. However the players relished the opportunity of this
match as they did not want to
win the division by playing weakened teams.
Sunday Matches Our first match was against the other team struggling
against relegation – Northampton Orange. Ellenborough had destroyed
Northampton Orange 8 – 0 in their last encounter and we were all extremely
confident of the win. The match proved to be a titanic struggle as the
pressure of the situation showed on all the players. First match on was Gary
Tendler V’s Dave Gatiss (ranked over 100 places lower than Gary on the
ETTA Ranking list) On paper this was a formality for Gary but Gatiss was
in great form quickly amassing a 2 games to zero lead. A harsh team talk at
the interval seemed to enliven Gary and he pulled back legs 3 and 4 to force
a fifth end decider. The fifth end was a nailbiting encounter going point
for point up to 9 all before Gatiss finally succommed to Gary’s more
powerful game. Next game on was Jimmy Walsh V’s Stephen Munson.
Jimmy has had problems with Munson in the past and although ranked
considerably higher, this was not a forgone conclusion. On this occasion
however Munson did not seem to be playing well missing easy balls that
normally he would have destroyed and Jimmy ran out an easy winner by 3 games
to 1. Next Match saw Matthew Spero play Ryan Keates. Ryan
is a very talented two winged looper who on his day (when his temperament is
right) can have extremely good
wins. This again was a tremendous battle with both Matt and Ryan
utilising heavy topspin loops away from the table. Inevitably this
match went to the fifth end where Matt Spero of Ellenborough squeezed out a
win 11-9 Next match was a shock for Ellenborough as the
experienced Simon Phipz went down to the awkward left hander from
Northampton – Simon Pryke. Simon Pryke ultimately went on to win his
other game against Matthew Spero but his two wins were to prove the only
games for Northampton – Orange. Whilst Ellenborough were winning their match on table
two a much stranger match was unfolding on table three – This was the
match between Plymouth and Cippenham. Plymouth were our main rivals as
Progress could not go up even if they won the division as British League
rules strictly prohibit two teams in the Premier division. Plymouth
needed all 8 points in the last weekend to overtake Ellenborough but to our
shock (and joy) we saw the scoreline creeping up 1-0, 2-0, 3-0 , 4-0,
5-0……… in Cippenham’s
favour !!! At this point Ellenborough had attained their Goal –
Premiership status!! This took so much pressure off our last match
against OLOP. We still wanted to win the match and the division and
if we had really needed to it may have been a completely different game,
however Ellenborough did not perform in this match as game after game went
in favour of OLOP. The eventual scoreline of 6-2 took some of the “icing
off the cake” and the Ellenborough team went away slightly dejected but on
reflection what a fantastic season !!! Ellenborough now look forward to a “golden era” of
table tennis within the club where we have the opportunity once again to
emulate the glory days of the 80’s Discussions are now in place to extend the Premiership
to 16 teams (a Northern Zone and a Southern Zone with the top half and
bottom half of each zone playing each other) All of the Ellenborough squad would like to thank all members of Ellenborough for their support throughout the season. Final league table available on the ETTA website: http://www.englishtabletennis.org.uk/competitions/dyncat.cfm?catid=12357
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