Dumfries Table Tennis Club

League Report February

Top Bananas faced The Chuckle Brothers on the 11th February; when Maria De Silva opened with a 3/0 win against Barry Kirkpatrick, 13-11, 11-9, 11-3. Brother Reuben followed up with a 3/0 victory over Paul Dowson, and the siblings then won the doubles 3/0. Next Paul defeated Maria, 7, 8, -8, 3, for what turned out to be his side’s only point as Reuben beat Barry in the last tie.

The men were in action again four days later against Apple Crumble, who fielded Iain Macleod and Craig Wilson. Iain began well by beating Barry in a tense five-set match in which he won the last set 12-10. Thereafter The Chuckle Brothers amassed four points, though the going was pretty tough. They went 1-2 down in the doubles but clawed their way back to win it 3/2. Paul and Iain then played a see-saw tie, which Paul finally won 11-8 in the fifth set. Barry secured the fourth point with a 3/0 victory over Craig.

On the same night Gaulty Towers chalked up a 4/1 win over Netflicks. Paul Borrowdale won the opening match against Gordon Duff, 9, 9, -3, 10, and Graham Gault took a close tie from Shona Morton, 11, 7, -10, 6. After lagging behind 0-2, the men won the doubles -10, -8, 5, 3, 4, to lead 3/0. Any match between Graham and Gordon has the potential to go the distance, and so it proved this time as Gordon battled back from 0-2 down to beat Graham -10, -11, 6, 8, 7. In the last tie Paul was in top form and won the fourth point by beating Shona 3/0.

The last update of the League statistics was on the 31st January, at which point Top Bananas had completed the first half of their scheduled matches and topped the division with 31 points. Lying second were the then unbeaten Netflicks, with 25 points. The Chuckle Brothers and Apple Crumble were locked in a fifth-place tie, each with two wins from six matches and 11 points.