The AETTU Annual Umpires’ Table Tennis Tournament and AGM was held at the Draycott Table Tennis Centre, Derbyshire last weekend.

A total of 29 umpires entered the tournament, which included several Scottish & one Irish umpire.

The events included Doubles, Hard-bat, Under-50s & Over-60s, followed by the AGM on the Saturday, plus Ladies, Over-50s, Over-70s, Open Singles and a Plate event on the Sunday.

The doubles partners were randomly drawn in an attempt to make it a more evenly contested competition.

The hard-bat competition had the most entries, closely followed by the Open Singles & Over-50s.

Apart from the hard-bat, which was a straight knockout, all the other events started with either Groups of three or four, except for a single group of five players for the Under-50s.

This year turned out to be one of the most competitive to date with quite a number of very close matches in both the group and knockout stages, the record being a 20-18 score in the fifth and final game in one of the Open Singles Group matches.

Steve Green won the Open Singles for the third consecutive year, while special mention goes to Colin Hamilton, who reached three finals but without tasting victory.

The winners and runners-up of the various events were:

Open Singles: Winner Steve Green, runner-up Colin Hamilton

Ladies: Kim Mudge, Catherine O’Neill

Plate: Jim Bolton, Paul Nicholls

Under-50s: Gary Whyman, Flynn Connolly

Over-50s: Steve Green, Colin Hamilton

Over-60s: Roy Claxton, Mark Kinlocke

Over-70s: David Attridge, Dave Goulden

Doubles: Steve Green & Alex Mercer, Gary Whyman & Jim Sterling

Hard-bat: David Attridge, Colin Hamilton

The event was refereed by Mike Payne and Dave Goulden. Thanks to Tom Purcell, who organised the event, including the hotel & dinner on Saturday evening at the Hallmark in Derby as well as Lilian Payne & Margaret Welch, who did the catering for the Sunday lunch.