Burnham & Dist: Bricks cannot be cracked

With all the matches taking place in the Burnham & District Table Tennis League this week, the drama came in the individual battles.

Fambridge remains firmly at the top of the competition pyramid after a comfortable 8-2 elimination of Cold Norton C. Mark Stones was the dominant player for Fambridge with an unbeaten evening in singles and doubles. He was taken all the way to a decisive leg by the young Sam Lowman, but came through with 11-6.

But that was just the beginning for the Cold Norton talisman as he went on to beat Fambridge Supremo John Poysden before coming from behind to deny Gary Young his hat-trick with a marathon five-set victory dance. Young and Poysden won their other matches against Dick Wyman and Tim Cramphorn to complete the scoring.

Cold Norton B remain in the race and this week's 7-3 margin of victory over a very strong Mapledene B side will help their cause. A strange set of scores for this one, with each of the Mapledene stars winning a single point, but strangely all against different players, so at least everyone went home with a win in their pockets.

The Cold Norton trio of Eric Green, Sam Lowman and Captain Dan Anderson all won two singles, with Green and Lowman combining for the bonus doubles point. Mapleden's Colin Chatfield defeated Lowman in straight sets for some healthy ranking points, David Jacob squeezed past Anderson in five sets and Keith Willett miraculously held on for a very long and hard fifth set victory over Eric Green. Willett almost made it two wins in another five-setter with Anderson, but lost 12-10 in the decider, having had match point at 10-9. You sure wish he would love to play those three points again!

In the final top division meeting of the week, the winners' podium wasn't really the focus of the discussions as the two bottom teams faced off in an all-Woodham encounter. Woodham C did extremely well, taking a 3-2 lead thanks to the enigma that is Adi Kamma. Kamma came back from 0-2 down against both Dan Patynski and Eamonn Hall to win both matches in five sets and each fifth leg was very comfortable at 11-2, which was excellent form.

Hall made up for that early loss to Kamma with an unexpectedly dominant tactical display against Graham Briggs, leveling the scores at the break. Whatever was said to the Woodham B side must have been enough as they completed the next four matches to complete the scoring for a welcome 7-3 win.

The B-team Harry Sawford finally broke the Kamma duck despite a Kamma comeback in the third leg that sent the bookmakers into a frenzy. The Woodham B team have finally recorded their first league win of the season, but the wait continues for the beleaguered C team.

The title race is in Division 2 is getting more and more exciting as we have three contenders starting to pull away from the pack. Maldon A continued to dominate all their matches and overcame the defense of a well-stacked Mapledene C trio this week. Lloyd Bennett-Smith showed great form for his hat-trick, with wingmen Colin Napper and Hamish Innes each picking up a pair of wins. For Mapledene, Tony Ayliffe proved the most stoic fighter with decisive set victories over Napper and Innes.

Woodham D jumped into second place after their 10-0 whitewash against Blackwater B early in the week, although the score does not reflect the quality of the Blackwater team's play that evening. Woodham's Mal Henstock was the player of the match as his idiosyncratic style was enough to throw his opponents and force mistake after mistake.

Henstock was joined by the young Peter Harverson and his ruthless leftie loops, and the not so young Eamonn Hall with his more measured approach. For Blackwater, Simon Quelch almost stole the opening point of the evening, but ultimately fell to Hall in the final points of the deciding set, and Gary Smith had a mighty battle with Harverson in a match where he lost 3-0 but totaled game point had. three legs for a loss of 11-13, 19-21, 10-12, but great entertainment for the watching crowd.

Stow Maries A still has a few games to catch up on, but will be in the mix for the next few weeks. This week they covered the short distance to Cold Norton D and in a smash-and-grab attack that didn't last long, stole all 10 points. Hat-tricks all round for the talents of Richard Storey, Gary Brignall and Tim Pulham, with only Pulham's victory over Neil Want going the full distance. Be warned: they are active and on the move.

Neil Freeman was the star player in the draw between Stow Maries B and Blackwater A, a result that knocks Stow B off the bottom of the table. Freeman won all his singles matches and added the doubles match with Alan Scammell as his partner. He didn't have it all his way, however, as Stow's Peter Hance took their match to five sets before Freeman could complete the task. Hance won his other two matches against Scammell and Roger Slade, a feat repeated by the hard-hitting Nicky Reece-Ford. Dave Marsh completed the scoring with a straight sets win over Slade.

A decisive action in Division 3 this week, but perhaps less so for early leaders Maldon C, who were set back a bit by Woodham Es own Superman, Mr Allan Steel. Steel by name, steely by nature, as Woodham's top player this round was unscathed in his singles match against Maldon C, dropping just one leg along the way.

Unfortunately this wasn't enough to force victory with key wins for Maldon's Marty Englander and Brian Riedling against pocket rocket Chris Crooks leading to an overall win for Maldon 6-4 and this keeps them in first place for the time being.

St Lawrence are still trying to make up lost ground after some poor results in the opening weeks of the season and this week they recorded an 8-2 win over Blackwater F. Dave Bateman remained undefeated with teammates Mike Pratley and Mike Burton only losing to Andy Simmonds, both in four sets.

Blackwater C overcame most of the Maldon E pressure this week with a 7-3 team effort, but none of the Blackwaterians could surpass the guile and skills of the tenacious John Leavett. Leavett had to work extremely hard to beat his opponents with many deuce legs along the way, including a fifth set 12-10 victory over Chris Rolison. So Rolison and his team of Phil West and Jacqui Treacy won two matches each, with Rolison and West combining for the extra doubles point.