Veteran ResultsVeteran's Team County Championships 2007/8 Season - 2nd Weekend Results 9/10th February 2008 held at Halifax Sandy Harper won all her matches and finished top of the ladies averages losing only one match on the first weekend held at St Neots to Janet Adams of Yorkshire. Their first match against Norfolk 2 resulted in a 5-5 draw as the Norfolk no. 1 David Henderson beat both Dobbins and Alsop and combining with Janet Kelly they also squeezed home 11-9 in the fifth against Harper and Alsop. The last minute call up of Harvey Cross, due to an snapped achilles heel injury to Colin Luscombe on the first weekend and the unavailability of Keith McConnell, provided an excellent stand in as he beat the Norfolk no. 3 Alan Jones -4, 8, 5, -6, 7 and just lost a very close and entertaining match to the experienced Norfolk no. 2 Mick Broughton -9, 8, -8, -9. Their afternoon match against a strong Worcestershire side was important since a loss could threaten the team with demotion, however, despite losing to the Worcestershire No. 3 in three straight sets Cross produced an outstanding performance to beat England no. 115 Stephane Bonnafous 10, -4, 6, 8. England no. 106 Dobbins an outstanding defender also beat Bonnafous in a thrilling -3, -8, 4, 8, 11 encounter. Alsop then dispatched the Worcestershire no. 1 Roy Norton 9, 6, 4 to put Bedfordshire 2-1 up. The mixed doubles provided the closest of any matches that weekend as Harper and Dobbins just pipped Reid and Bonnafous 17-15 in the fifth! Bedfordshire then ran out 8-2 winners only losing the men's doubles from then on. Sunday had their last match of the Division to be played in the morning and this was against over the county border team Northants. This team had England no. 11 Maggie Welsman, England no. 40 Dave Welsman, England no. 70 Steve Silk and England no. 139 Ken Philipson to call on. So how would the Bedfordshire team fair? Dobbins easily took the first set 11-4 but Silk fought back to win the the 15-13 however he couldn't quite match Dobbin's consistency as he squeezed a 10, 10 win for Beds. Harvey Cross found it difficult to reached the peaks of Saturday's performances and lost the next match to Phillipson -8, -8, -5 however John Alsop turned in one of his best performances of the weekend beating Welsman 12, 9, 7 after being several points down in both the first two sets. A win next by Harper and Dobbins in the mixed meant Bedfordshire were leading 3-1, however, Steve Silk was just too strong against Cross and the match was now 3-2. England No. 4 Sandy Harper then went on against Maggie Welsman and once again showed her class winning 6, -6, 4, 6 and moving Beds into a 4-2 lead. The men's doubles, however, was Bedfordshire's undoing as Alsop lost his form and despite winning the first set 11-9 the Beds pair then lost the next two sets 11-0, 11-7 to Welsman and Philipson. The fourth set saw Northants race into 9-5 lead but Dobbins and Alsop switched up a gear to come back and win 14-12. However, the revival was short lived and Northants won the remaining set 11-5 bring the match score back to 4-3. Alsop then faced Ken Philipson and found Philipson looking in complete control as he lead 7-4 in the fourth set. A change of tactics by Alsop pulled the score back to 7-6 when Philipson called a timeout, however, Alsop undeterred took the set 14-12 and the fifth set 11-5 to put the match score at 5-2 and a win likely. The best match of the weekend was Dobbins against Welsman. When they last clashed two years ago Welsman was a comfortable 3-0 winner and after winning the first set 11-4 it looked like Welsman would do the same again. However, Dobbins came back with the incredible defensive returns and occasional attacking shots winning the second set 11-4 before losing the the next 3-11. The fourth set was close and Dobbins took the match all the way to the fifth by winning 13-11. It was Dobbins who looked the stronger in the fifth with some amazing retrievals and long distance hitting which had the crowd applauding the quality of this match. However, at 8-7 up Dobbins went for two attacking shots which failed to have the effect he hoped and Welsman hungry for victory took the set 11-8 and inched Northants back to 4-5. The last match was the mixed doubles with Harper/Cross against Welsman/Silk and it was a topsy turvy event with the Northants finally winning 7, -9, 6, -3, 5 and securing a draw. Bedfordshire were a little disapointed since a 6-4 win would have meant equal third place with Northants in the Division. However, a fourth place in a Division reckoned by many to have been stronger than Division 1 was an extremely credible achievement. Final Positions 1. Norfolk 1 2. Yorkshire 3 3. Northants 1 4. Bedfordshire 1 5. Notts 1 6. Norfolk 2 7. Durham 1 8. Worcs 2 |
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