ROSE JOHNSON BOWL

Two teams from Knighton Park provided the finalists for the oldest table tennis event in the county when the second team took full advantage of their 116 start over the 16 games to beat the third team 336-315.  This is a competition in which every point counts, and certainly did in the final.

Three of the third team play in division two of the Leicester League and they set about reducing the deficit in fine style with George McClurkin beating Simon Aldis 21-9, Reza Kiani defeated Ashley Palmer 21-14, this being a good performance by the latter, before Shirley Pickering overcame Martin Pember 21-14.  Three of the 16 games gone and 26 of the points pulled back.

Chris Palmer-Saville then stopped this onslaught with a terrific game against his league team-mate, Patrick Cox, winning 21-19.   But then Kiani, McClurkin and Pickering won three more by a combined score of plus 30, while Cox also joined in the fun by beating Pember 21-14.  The third team were three points ahead of target at exactly the half way point.

The second team then won two of the next batch of four games and swung things very much their way.  Aldis scored a terrific 21-19 victory over Pickering and then Palmer beat Cox 21-12.  The third team kept fighting but man-of-the-match Palmer’s 21-13 win over McClurkin in the penultimate game settled the issue.  Individual performances:

KP Third: Simon Aldis -34, Ashley Palmer +6, Martin Pember -41, Chris Palmer-Saville -26.
KP Second: George McClurkin +27, Reza Kiani +50, Shirley Pickering +13, Patrick Cox +5.

The ELBOW TANKARD Summer team handicap will comprise of ten teams nicely divided into two divisions with the two group winners playing against the other group’s runner up in the semi finals.  Each team will play against the other four in their group home and away.

Not surprisingly Knighton Park has the most entries with four, with two from Abbots Road.  The two groups will be:

Group A: Park Rangers, Vicars, Nomads, Park Strollers, Villagers.
Group B: Park Attendants, Bishops, Electric City, Park Keepers, Desford Dynamos.