News From The Guildford Table Tennis Association September 2022

Published on: 21 Sep, 2022
Updated on: 19 Oct, 2022

Report by Steve Day

After many years work as press officer of the Guildford Table Tennis Association, John Diggens has handed over the reins to me.

John will, however, continue as an active member of the committee in his roles as president and archivist. Thanks go to John for his past efforts and advice.

With the new season starting very shortly, I thought it would be good to review what happened last season and take a look at the make-up of the divisions for next season.

Below is an extract of David Lush’s match secretary report for the 2021-22 season.

At the start of the season we were faced with a reduction in entries from just under 60 to 40 teams and the committee took the decision to keep five divisions and reduce the number of teams in each to eight from twelve in order to keep each division as competitive as possible and also to play all other teams in their division three times to give a full season – this was successful.

Now to a review of the season – all individuals mentioned played over 50% of their teams’ matches.

Premier division: Godalming A were crowned champions ahead of Burymead B and Merrow A – whilst Burymead B did not play as a 9-0 win would have seen them equal Godalming’s points, but they could not have won the title as they would have won fewer games than Godalming.

Adam Laws and Rob Poultney.

Farnborough Tennis finished bottom and struggled all season. Adam Laws won all 51 of the games he played with Rob Pountney also of Godalming winning 36 out of 39.

First division: Another win for Godalming with their B team leading the table for the whole season, whilst Merrow B made the most of games in hand at the end of the season to finish second.

Bramley A were tailed off and will presumably be Bramley B next season! Shaun Robertson of Merrow E finished with a 100% average winning all 47 games played and won 100% of his games when playing for the D team.

Fei Fei Pei.

Runner up in the averages was Fei Fei Pei of Godalming B winning 34 out of 39.

Second division: The tightest of all the divisions with Bramley B winning their last match to overtake long time leaders Aftermath B, although both had 25 points to spare over Ash in third place.

Linda Makepeace.

Bramley C finished eighth, finishing level on points with Godalming D who won more matches. Linda Makepeace of Bramley B topped the averages winning 48 out of 57 played followed by James Wyncoll of Ash winning 35 out of 54.

Third division: An emphatic win for Woking LTC A by over 30 points from Godalming F. Aftermath C finished bottom.

A special mention for Emmanuel who played most of the period before Christmas with only two players but with a new signing rallied to finish in mid table.

Leading the averages were Mike Glen of Woking LTC A winning 38 out of44 and Adrian Stell of Godalming F with 44 wins in 52 games played.

Fourth division:Another success for Woking LTC with their B team leading the table for the whole season and finishing 17 points clear of Godalming G.

The other six teams were separated by only 16 points – lots of 5-4 matches here. Rob Mitchell led the averages with 37 wins in 41 games – a special mention of three Godalming juniors who all won in excess of 75% – Vlad Cretu (until promoted to Division 2 ), Anay Gandhi & Siddie Pillai.

The forthcoming season will be of a similar structure to 2021-22 with five divisions and eight teams per division.

Although Division 4 currently only has seven teams. Sadly, Farnborough Tennis have resigned from the league. Their place in the top division will be taken by last season’s Division 1 winners, Godalming B.

As with last season each team will play each other three times. Good luck to all those taking part. The full list of teams is as follows:

Premier Division

Godalming A

Burymead A

Godalming B

Merrow A

Burymead B

College Hill A

Merrow C

Merrow B

First Division

Godalming C