Rik James leads ECC to hard-fought Open KO Cup Final victory

The ECC side of Rik James, Steve Kerns and Peter Lau regained the Chelmsford & District Table Tennis League Open KO Cup with a hard-fought 5-3 victory in the Final over Danbury. Rik James held the ECC side together with well executed victories over Antony Greenwood (11-7, 11-9, 11-3) and Michael Andrews (11-1, 11-9, 7-11, 11-5) and Peter Lau contributed a hugely important last-gasp success against Eric Green (12-10, 6-11, 6-11, 11-7, 11-9). Danbury had hit
back by winning both Doubles with Mike Andrews / Antony Greenwood pulling out all the stops to get the better of Rik James / Steve Kerns over five furious
ends (9-11, 11-7, 11-9, 11-13, 11-8). This is ECC’s seventh win in the eight years from when this Cup was “rebranded” the Open KO Cup as opposed to the Mens KO Cup.

ECC Club Captain Arthur Clark – such an integral part of the ECC Club‘s successes in the Cup Competitions commented – “It was Peter Lau’s win over Eric
Green that  won it for us – if we’d lost that one the impetus would have been strongly with Danbury“.

Division two Champions Elmtree Excalibur (Scott Dowsett, Gus Heath and Tony Hallett) made it a League and Cup double by beating Hatfield Peverel 5-1 in the
Division two KO Cup Final. It was a strong performance all-round from the Elmtree side with Scott Dowsett, Gus Heath and Tony Hallett all picking up singles wins and Elmtree also coming good in both doubles. Gary Ward had given Hatfield Peverel some hope by beating Gus Heath 11-9, 11-8, 13-11 but Gus had the last laugh. He beat John Parodi 11-13, 11-6, 11-7, 13-11 to secure the Elmtree Graphics victory.

There was a shock in the Division Four Cup Final when OCs – the runaway winners of the Division were well beaten 5-0 by Danbury J who finished a massive 40
points adrift of them in the League. Danbury J turned in a top-class performance on this occasion with Dave Goody, Dave Powell and Brian Ellis all playing their part in an impressive victory. Dave Powell beat Daniel Berry 11-5, 11-6, 11-8 and Dave Goody followed this up with a 11-3, 11-6, 11-8 success against Charlie Mariner. OCs were clearly in trouble and Brian Ellis delivered a further blow by beating Peter Windley 11-6, 12-10, 11-9.

There was further success for Danbury who became the 2014 Handicap KO Cup Champions. Their side of Dave Marsh (playing off a Handicap of 59), John
Robinson (57) and Mo Hardy (57) beat Hatfield Peverel 5-3 in the Final. The match took on a simple format – Mo Hardy and Dave Marsh won all five of their
games to ensure that Danbury stayed on top. Dave Marsh, clearly enjoying a very good night clinched the victory with a runaway 21-11, 21-7 victory over John
Parodi (who was playing off a Handicap of 64). Dave Marsh also dealt well with the hard-hitting flamboyant style of Hatfield Peverel’s Gary Ward (70) clinching a fine 21-15, 21-15 win.

Steve Kerns
Press & Publicity Officer
Chelmsford & District Table Tennis League