Park and Ride, the young team from Knighton Park who won Division Four of the Leicester League last season, continue their collective success in the Elbow Tankard, the League’s summer handicap competition, despite climbing gradings resulting in lower handicaps.
Mind you, it was a close-run thing in Group B when they found themselves 9-5 down with three best of two (21-up) rubbers to go against Vicars, who play out of Abbots Road.
Thus far Vicars had performed well until Oscar White started the rot by beating Fayed Sacoor to make it 9-7. Adam Green followed with a similar success over Chetan Tailor to level things.
Vishal Parmar was unbeaten at this stage for Vicars but found no answer to Max Huggins who also won both games to give his team the win at 11-9.
The youngsters are now certain of a semi-final place, unlike any of the others, with Park Keepers and Electric City fighting out a 10-10 draw. Dean Jordan and Rod Pickering both secured four from six for Keepers but Electric took the doubles 3-1 while Tony Monteiro, Bryan Moylan and Andy Wright won enough between them for the other seven games.
It’s any two from three in Group A for the semis as they squabble amongst themselves, with Knighton The Town defeating Nomads 15-5 to dent the latter’s chances with Simon Aldis in fine form in winning all six, ably supported by Chris Parmar-Saville who won five.
Meanwhile, having had their chances somewhat reduced the week before against Nomads, KP Nutters came back with a bang to beat Desford Dynamos 16-4 with an excellent team performance, Steve Bessant particularly impressive and unbeaten in the doubles.
The Leicester League finished last season with 57 senior teams and are hopeful of retaining that number for the coming term, a couple of teams falling by the wayside but made up by the same number coming in as extras from other clubs.
The League will be running a vigorous campaign this season with a view to increasing not only teams but will also aim to bring new clubs into the fold. Not least of all taking advantage of the vast increase in casual daytime players who are gradually gaining in confidence as coaching takes effect. Numerous friendlies over the winter will give them additional experience to ease them into league play.