Sunday 11th December 2011

6-3

Tipue M A, Simon O | Andrew B, Simon T | David W, Alfie S

Abbeydale’s E team are made up of a number of their juniors, with a probable average age of about 15. This is their first time in the feathers league, and they’ve been finding it hard going – they told us they’d lost all their first 8 matches either 1-8 or 0-9 this year – so we were hoping for our second victory of the year.

Playing a strong first pair of Tipue and Simon O, we were confident of them taking all three games. They took a while to warm up and only just won the first game 24-22, but from then on eased to victory, mostly 21-13s and 21-12s.

The only other regular Feathers team player, Simon T, paired up with Andrew for his first feathers game in some time. All their games were close, particularly a 27-25 victory in one game, but their experience (and ability to duck under all the bullets that went out at the back) was enough to see them win every game by two or three points each time.

Our third pair saw David, one of our most regular substitutes, paired with Alfie, new to our team and having to relearn how feathers fly. Their games were all equally as close as Simon and Andrew’s, but sadly the result of each was a loss by a small margin. Their closest effort saw them finish 19-21 in the third game, and certainly they were deserving of winning one of their three.

Thanks to our substitutes for giving us a team, and a 6-3 victory is our best so far this season so we’re happy with that.

Tuesday 6th December 2011

4-5

Simon O, Aaron G | Nick F, Simon T | Tipue M A, Ed S

A full team for the first time this year arrived in Abbeydale for the second of six fixtures against Abbeydale in this division.

Their first pair was their strongest, and we lost all our games against them, though they were all close, and Aaron and Simon O took them to three games.

Their second pair was their weakest, and we won all our games against them, including a convincing 21-8 21-8 win by Aaron and Simon O on top form.

So the match was decided with the three games against their third pair. Aaron and Simon O weren’t able to continue their good run, and narrowly lost 20-22, 18-21. Tipue and Ed went closer still, losing 21-23, 20-22. Nick and Simon T played their best in this game and won 21-18, 21-17, but overall the team was one game short of victory and lost 4-5.

Friday 11th November 2011

4-5

Simon O, Chris R | Nick F, Simon T | David W, John W

In an odd game, we almost won before we’d started, but ended up narrowly losing.

Abbeydale turned up 30mins late, and with only two pairs. Had Simon been in a grumpy mood, or had they not apologised for their tardiness, we’d have claimed the first two games for them being late, claimed all three against their absent third pair, and won 5-4 before setting foot on the court.

Unfortunately for our promotion prospects, which are admittedly dim at best, we only claimed the three against the absent third pair, and played the other six.

John and David Walker, standing in once again as third pair for our team, started strongly, beating their better pair 15-21, 21-16, 23-21. That better Abbeydale partnership did win their other two games convincingly, leaving the match result to be determined by the games against the remaining Abbeydale pair.

Simon and Chris’s attempt at taking that game ended in a close 19-21, 20-22 loss. Simon and Nick’s attempt started better at 21-10, but ended with a similarly close and similarly unsuccessful 18-21, 21-23 loss. The Walkers, having already won one game, were kind enough not to rub it in by winning the other one as well, so their sole victory left us one game short of a match win, and Abbeydale took a somewhat unlikely 5-4 win.

Ladies: Charlotte, Linda, Dawn

Men: Dave, David, Willie

Results 5-4

The team all arrived at Wisewood nice and early, at the promise of having 3 courts, but with a little trepidation at playing Wisewood 1, since we’d lost to Wisewood 2 (6-3) earlier in the season.

The first 3 games we played set us up for a nice early lead.  Charlotte and Linda won their ladies, Dave and David (standing in for Chris) won their mens and Dawn and Willie won their mixed.  Buzzing from our success we all went on again – only to lose the next 3 rubbers (2 of which went to 3 and were very close).  From our great start, we found ourselves at a score of 3-3 with our last 3 rubbers (all mixed) to play.

Charlotte and Dave fought hard in their first game, and had a close win of 23-21.  In the second end they’d found their stride and won easily with a final score of 21-13.

David and Linda went on to play at the same time as Willie and Dawn – in the knowledge that the score was 4-3 and there was everything to play for.  When Willie and Dawn lost in 2 close games, it was down to David and Linda to save the day.  David confessed to ‘usually bottling it’ when such a demand was on him and at one game each things were on a knife edge! Despite these worries, they played magnificently in the final game and succeeded in securing the team a win with an overall score of 5-4!

Thank you to all for turning up early and playing hard, and to David for standing in at short notice.

Tuesday 18th October 2011

4-5

John W, Dave W | Chris R, Simon O | David P, Mark R

Another good match was played out at home, this time against Paces. Most of the games were close with many rubbers going to a third game. Unfortunately our third pair (*blush*) didn’t manage to win any rubbers and the resulting pressure on the remaining two pairs proved a little too much as at 4-4 we lost the deciding rubber in two very close games. We need to put it behind us now and concentrate for Friday’s match which is against Phoenix where the result is always close.

Thursday 13 October 2011

3-6

Ed S, Simon O | Nick F, Simon T | Tipue M A, Willie McK

The uni had been a division above us for the last few years, but were relegated down to our division this year, so this was the first match with them for a while, and the first time we’d played them at Hillsborough College (which turned out to be relatively easy to find but almost impossible to get into).  Their first pair were noticeably a level above us, and they won their three games easily.  Their other pairs were more our level, and we had some very close matches – five of the six going to the third game.  Nick and Simon won both theirs, finishing each with a narrow 21-19 victory.  Ed and Simon came from behind to win one, and then dropped from ahead to lose the other.  Tipue and Willie made a brave and tiring effort, but were unable to win either despite a tense 24-22 victory in one of the games.

Friday 7 October 2011

5-4

Aaron G, Simon O  |  Nick F, Simon T  |  David W, John W

Always close between Oakbrook and Phoenix, and this was no exception.  Their third pair proved to be their strongest, winning all their three games, with only David and John able to take them to a third game.  Their second pair, seemingly defeated by the colour of the lines and the speed of the shuttles before they’d started, never really settled, and we won all our games against them.  That left their first pair, and the two regular feathers-team pairs were able to win by small margins, giving us a 5-4 win overall.

The Combined 2 team played away at Abbeydale on 17th October 2011.

Our team consisted of Dave, Chris and Willie and Charlotte, Linda and Dawn (c)

All the rubbers were really close – with 4 out of the 9 going to 3 games.

At the end of the 8th game, we found ourselves in the situation that no-one wants to be in….. the last game (with everyone watching) was going to be the decider…… heads down after we lost the first game 21-17… picked them up again when we won the next game 21-17…. and the final score… 21-7 to us.

Overall score – we won 5 – 4!

The partnerships started to fall into place and it was nice to see them starting to gel and work together on court, well done everyone!