OCs A (Adam Yardley, Tanishq Kotwal and James Mitty) are the 2018 Chelmsford & District Table Tennis League Junior Knock Out Cup champions and they won the title with a thrilling 5-4 victory in the Final against Chelmsford A (Ben Jackson, Harry Buckle and Joachin Mapes).

It was a match where Jackson played a major role in keeping Chelmsford A in the hunt by beating Kotwal 3-1 (10-12, 12-10, 11-8,11-9) and Yardley 3-1 (14-12, 11-8, 11-13, 11-7). Mitty clinched a vital 3-0 (13-11, 11-6, 11-8) win over Mapes and with the scores poised at 4-4 the OCs pairing of Yardley and Mitty made no mistake against Buckle and Mapes and they raced to a 3-0 (11-7, 11-5, 11-6) win to clinch the victory.

This year’s Handicap KO Cup final will be between Danbury D and Chelmsford B. Danbury D (Eamon Hall (handicap of 58), Ben Porter (43) and Sam Ford (37) beat Chelmsford J – Richard Gardiner (51), Jamie Dowsett (45) and Luke Richardson (45) 5-2.

Porter and Ford were responsible for all five Danbury wins and in the case of Ford he wasn’t pushed too hard. Ford surged home 21-11, 21-11 against Richardson and 21-0, 21-14 against Dowsett.

Chelmsford B looked good in beating Hatfield Peverel A 5-1. All six players were operating on similar handicaps but it was the Chelmsford side of Robert Shrimpton (66), Mark Allaway (65) and Victor Chan (64) who called the shots against Gary Ward (68), John Gagg (66) and John Parodi (64).

Crucial matches here were the narrow 21-18, 20-22, 21-18 victory for Allaway against Parodi and a hard-fought 21-17, 23-21 win for Shrimpton against Ward – which secured the Chelmsford side’s victory. On this showing the Danbury D side look as if they will be very hard to beat in the final.

Division two Champions Writtle Excalibur A (Lee McHugh, Matthew Brown and Ryan Pitt) were on top form as they defeated Danbury A 5-0 in their division two Knock Out Cup semi-final. Ryan Pitt impressed as he disposed of Tony Forster 3-0 (11-3, 11-6, 11-5) whilst Lee McHugh played his part by defeating Glen Laing 3-1 (9-11, 11-5, 11-8, 11-9).

Danbury just couldn’t get a foot-hold in the match and sure enough McHugh and Matthew Brown clinched a 5-0 victory by beating Neil Want and Laing by a rather unpredictable scoreline of 3-2 (10-12, 11-6, 3-11, 11-2, 11-5).

The Division three Knock Out Cup semi-final between Danbury A and OCs A was a closer affair with Danbury A winning 5-3. It came down to the dominance of David Gatheral and Ken Sheard in their singles encounters. They both won twice. Gatheral beat David Porter 3-0 (11-8, 11-8, 11-6) and Mick Richardson 3-2 (11-5, 11-6, 2-11, 8-11, 11-8) whilst Sheard defeated Mick Hayes 3-1 (11-7, 11-4, 9-11, 11-9) and Porter 3-0 (15-13, 11-9, 11-6).

Highwood A (Melanie Bonnett, Nicola Pippen and Keith Fitz-John) are safely through to the Division five Knock Out Cup final. They beat Chelmsford A 5-1 in what was a very good match for Keith Fitz-John. It was Fitz-John whose two wins really stood out. He beat John Wickins 3-1 (11-7, 11-3, 7-11, 11-9) and Ian Austin 3-2 (17-15, 7-11, 11-6, 8-11, 11-6).

In division two there was a very significant result from the match between OCs C and Liberal C. The 6-4 win for OCs means that Liberal C are relegated and the other OCs side in this division – OCs B stay up despite finishing on the same number of points as Liberal C. In this case OCs B had won a greater number of matches, the determining factor.

Fittingly it was a very hard-fought match with no one player dominating proceedings. Charles Yeung made his mark for the Old Chelmsfordians C team. He beat Andrew Huckson 3-0 (11-3, 12-10, 12-10) and Hannah Pitt 3-2 (11-4, 11-9, 12-14, 1-11, 11-9), although he missed out to Robin Armstrong 3-1 (11-13, 10-12, 11-6, 5-11).