The young team of Park and Ride, representing Knighton Park, won the Leicester and District League’s Elbow Tankard when they overcame a fighting Vicars of Abbots Road 11-5 despite the efforts of the in-form Vishal Parmar who won four of his six games for the losers.

Park and Ride’s plan was to contain Parmar as best they could and try to win as many of the remainder but Oscar White had other ideas, taking full advantage of an eight points start he won 21-11 and led 20-15 in the second before Parmar pulled it back for a 1-1 scoreline.

The youngsters then captured the next two sets, both by 2-0, when Dan Pearson beat Bhulesh Rathod before Patrick Cox defeated Chetan Tailor. Parmar pulled two back with a terrific success over Pearson, who received eight, with the Abbots’ player taking it 24-22, 21-19, bringing the overall score to 5-3 to the Park.

Park and Ride have done quite well in the doubles and took those 3-1 this time, and then White had no problem overcoming Tailor 2-0 to set up a 10-4 lead which, strangely enough, is a score they were held to a draw from against the same team in the group matches. This time Cox made no mistake by taking the second game against Parmar to seal an excellent victory.

The League season officially starts on Monday September 12 with, as expected, the same number of teams taking part – 57 – that finished the last term. Three teams were lost but, while there are no new clubs, three clubs have entered an extra team, all in Division Five: Winstanley Wizards, Unicorn and Blaby and Whetstone, coincidentally all their third team.

The League embarks on an ambitious project this season in not only trying to fill those three places for a full complement of 60 teams but with plans to encourage the various social groups that are growing to enter teams of their own in future seasons, eventually aiming for a target of six full divisions in four or five years’ time.