Now
that the 2005/06 season has drawn to a close, just how well
did our teams’ do?
Well,
the majority of successes seemed to be in the lower
divisions and the only outright divisional winning team
Baddow Village had was in the CLICK league, where our
‘M’ team of Tom Lee, Matt Davis and Gavin Trodd excelled
by winning all 16 matches and only dropping 9 games along
the way. They held off a strong challenge by Hylands School
to win their first league title.
Congratulations boys!
Our other two CLICK teams ‘O’ and ‘N’
finished 4th and 6th respectively.
Next
division up in
Div 6, we can also be proud of our young ‘L’ team
who finished in 2nd spot behind Danbury ‘K’,
so gaining promotion to Div 5 for next season.
The very much improved Adam Pitt, Hannah Pitt,
Richard Napper and Matt Skeoch, finished the season
strongly, leapfrogging other possible contenders to secure
promotion and deny ECC ‘J’ the opportunity by just
edging them out at the finish. Teams ‘H’ Fred Henwood,
Ron Arthur, Chris High, Les Webb and Peter Revell (4th),
‘K’ Eric Clift, Mick Pitt, Alex Stone and Andrew Orme (5th)
and ‘J’ Diane Pitt, Ian Austin, Andy Lager and
Jacqueline Smith (7th) all had their moments, but
will have to do it all again in this division next season.
In
Div 5, our ‘F’ team of Rykki Vansertima, Haydn Upson,
Sam Pitt and captain Richard Upson promoted to Div 5, having
dominated Div 6 for most of the previous season, found the
going just a little too tough and regrettably finished
bottom of their division and will now swap places with our
‘L’ team. The ‘G’ team skippered by Mike Robinson
with Colin Gooday, Phil Twite and Steve Clift fared a little
better and battled hard to avoid being in the drop zone.
Phil in particular impressed this season. Writtle
ultimately became the other relegation victim.
Possibly
one of the more surprising league outcomes came in Div 4,
where our ‘E’ team comprising captain Bob
Francis, Graham Turner, Bradley Hudgell and Laura Pyman,
finished a very respectable 4th after a somewhat
nervous start to the season. Bradley in particular, really
rose to the challenge of playing at this higher level and
swept aside most of the opposition he faced.
(Bradley also guested for Mike Johnston’s ‘C’
team in Div 3 where he also shone).
Had they enjoyed a better start, this team could have
been looking at promotion to Div 3.
In
Div 3, our ‘C’ team of Mike Johnston, Duncan Elloy,
Alastair Brown and Ryan Pitt finished in 6th
place just ahead of the ‘D’ team of Frank Neill, Ray
Lawrence, Steve Muth, Steve Back and Stuart Skippings in 7th.
They live to fight another day in this tough
division.
Both teams could have and should have done better
maybe?
Our
‘B’ team captained by Al Piper with Adrian Pitt and
Julie Vansertima, more than held their own at this level and
probably would have expected to finish higher than their 6th
place.
Captain Al, you will recall, caused a major upset in
the Individual Championships by beating No.3 seed Vytas
Rybakas 3-1, and went on to enjoy many league victories this
season.
Adrian too has had a good season and found his old
form again. And then there was Julie….What more can you
say!
16 times-Ladies Singles Champion and you can see why!
And
finally, the crème de la crème, our ‘A’ team in
Division 1 led by Neil Gooday with Peter Barrett and Waseem
Qureshi.
Again, like the ‘B’ team, finished in 6th
position having been promoted back to Div 1 at the end of
last season, gave a very good account of themselves and
showed they belonged at this level.
So,
that’s it.
Apologies if I have missed anyone out in the team
line-ups.
I hope you all enjoyed the season and are looking
forward to the next one where hopefully we can win some more
silverware for the club.
A
more detailed report for each team will be found in the end
of year Newsletter when it is published later in May.
Eric Clift
25th April 2006
