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Monday
5 August 2002

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JUNIORS TAKE ON PENIEL

In order to gain valuable experience League Coaching Officer Hil Dowsett took a group of 9 Chelmsford Juniors to face their peers at the renowned Peniel Academy at Brentwood. The match, on Tuesday 30 July, featured 6 juniors from Baddow (Adam Pitt, Hannah Pitt, Sam Pitt, Matthew Skeoch, Haydn Upson and  Rykki Vansertima) and 3 from Excalibur (Tom Webb, Stuart & Craig Hiskey) table tennis clubs.

For the match the players were divided into two groups and with very few exceptions in both groups the Chelmsford players were giving away at least 2 years in age difference. But according to our reporter the kids all played well and were by no means completely outclassed. In Group A (Haydn, Rykki, Sam & Tom), Rykki, Sam & Tom all won matches against Ben Hodge, but Haydn was the only player to have the satisfaction of taking games off of all his opponents, and considering the age difference for him was an average of 3 years this was no mean achievement. A very narrow 3:2 defeat by 14 year old Ben Van Enklevort being his best effort. The main difference between the teams was the quality of serving. The Peniel squad having clearly had some serious coaching in that respect. Hardly surprising when you consider that they count former England International star Nicky Jarvis amongst the coaching staff. both Tom and Haydn won 5 games with Tom being the most successful in this group with 5 out of 15.

In Group B (Adam, Matthew, Hannah, Craig and Stuart) it was surprisingly 10 year old Adam who proved the most successful, pulling off a fine 2:1 win over 12 year old Cally McNeil and just going down 3:2 against 11 year old Charles Dean. His tally of 6 wins out of 16 games meant that he took games from everyone he played and was the most successful Chelmsford player overall. According to our reporter, it was a "particularly gutsy performance".

All in all a very enjoyable 2 hours of table tennis and the Chelmsford
players' attitudes and behaviour were all impeccable if not lively!

Thanks must go to Peniel for hosting the event and to Hil for organising it. Also to accompanying coaches Neil Gooday, Ryan Pitt and Julie Vansertima.

The quality of pictures from our roving reporter left a little to be desired but the best are shown below.

 

Time for a break. Rykki, Haydn, Sam, Stuart and Adam take a well earned rest. But just what is Adam doing? And does he really have 4 legs!?

 

Tom Webb of Excalibur in action in Group A where he was the most successful player with 5 wins out of 15

Stuart Hiskey and Haydn Upson  in action.  Haydn taking games from all of his opponents in Group A