New faces dominate primary table tennis competition

 

A new swathe of young up & coming table tennis players came to the fore, in the 2011 East Staffordshire & South Derbyshire Primary Schools table tennis competition, held at Robert Sutton Sports College.

 

From the 8 schools with entries, 3 were entering for the first time, with one of those being St.Peters First School from Alton with 3 entries from a total roll of just 52 pupils aged 4-9!! Not only did they have 3 entries but they also provided one of the girls finalists, in Abi Evans. Abi came through her group unbeaten before beating Eleanor Booth & Emily Simms, both from St.Edwards, Swadlincote on route to the final.  

 

In the other half of the draw William Shrewsbury’s Lucy Yates was making similarly emphatic progress to the final. After winning her group, Lucy overcame Sophie Woodward from St.Edwards and Scarlett Timms from John of Rolleston to join Abi. With this being both girls’ first competition nerves showed up early on with very little between them in the first 2 games. However, when it mattered Lucy came up with the winning points and at 2-0 up she relaxed and began

imparting a little spin on the ball, enough to confuse Abi and run away with 3rd end and the match. Consolation for Abi though, was to join Lucy in qualifying for the county schools individual competition in February. The team event, last year won by a single point, was this year far clearer cut. However, the winner remained the same, with St.Edwards again showing their strength in depth.  

 

The boys' event was just as refreshing as the girls, with 7 of the 8 quarter finalists reaching this point for the first time. The exception was Edge Hill’s Matthew Insley, a semi-finalist last year. He made his way past Daniel Allen from Overseal,who did fantastically well to make the semi-final and John of Rolleston’s Tom Woolley. Tom’s

schoolmates Charlie Kendrick and Aaron Gilbert were also proving hard to beat in the other half of the draw and with Jack Timms also making the quarter finals, the team event had a brand new name on the trophy, as John of Rolleston ended William Shrewsbury’s recent domination of primary school table tennis in Burton.

 

In the quarter finals, Charlie overcame St.Modwens’ Ethan Lowing, whilst Aaron was ending the run of Billy Snow from St.Peters, Alton. Although sometimes tight, Charlie always held the upper hand in the semi final and went through. The final was a nip & tuck affair throughout, with no more than 3 points ever separating Matthew & Charlie. The turning point came in the third game where both held the advantage at some stage before Matthew won 15-13. Charlie was now always playing catch-up and despite never being far behind he just couldn’t get his head in front and Matthew took the 4th game and match 11-9.

 

The whole event again proved a massive success with all the children coming away with smiles on their faces. Many thanks must go to the sports leaders who helped run the competition and all the teachers, parents & grandparents who got the children there. The secondary schools competitions are due to be held over the next few weeks, so watch out for a report on those to come.

 

Simon Price