The Leicester Development League, effectively the Junior League, continues to go from strength to strength with an increase in participation every year since its inception just after the turn of the century.
Naturally, there are numerous helpers but the man very much at the helm is Vaughan Allington, who has worked absolute magic in recent years and whose hard work is paying off handsomely. So much so that an unprecedented 41 teams are contesting this season over several weekends and in 10 divisions, with 93 players having taken part in the first session.
Not surprisingly with their vast resources these days and large coaching programme, Knighton Park teams were in abundance and two of their teams won the Division One play-offs to decide the top division outright later in the month.
KP1 Scorpions won Division 1A with Aman Rashid at the helm and winning all his sets. Rashid still has several years as a junior yet has plenty of experience as he came through the Leicester League like the proverbial knife through butter and is now resident in the very top division of the senior league. Giving him good support was Ben Smulczynski who is playing this season in the senior Division Three to good effect. They will be joined in the top flight by the runners-up in this section, Winstanley A.
Winning Division 1B were KP2 Bears with Adnan Ebrahim unbeaten and well supported by Kieron Storer, while second were Harborough A who had Rhys Emery in very good form, losing only to Ebrahim. So, two Knighton Park teams, Harborough and Winstanley will contest at the top in the next stage.
Some good performances further down included unbeaten returns by Thavachelvan Chinnaraja and George Perker in Division Three, while Division Four had three girls undefeated for KP10 Eagles in Sufyaana Dhanji, Ella Parmar-Saville and Maya Dehnen.
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In Division One of the Leicester League the latest round of results saw 10-0 whitewashes very much to the fore as the teams contesting near the top flexed their considerable muscles.
Knighton Park firsts, with new signing Chris Rogers very much looking the part, beat Holwell Works, with Les Baker and Chris’s sister, Karen Smith, providing the remainder. The Park’s second team also scored a full house, against their own thirds, with George McClurkin, Osman Bawa and Reza Kiani in good form. The same can be said of Ajax Wolvey’s Mick Allsopp, Aidan Walsh and Jon Williams against Desford. Nine players and a score of 27-0 between them.
Bucking the trend saw Unicorn beat Arnesby 7-3 when Tim Sheppard and Trevor Kerry emerged unbeaten, while James Lancaster and Ian Brown defeated Geoff Parsons for two Arnesby singles, plus the doubles.
Electricity thirds were without Chris Woodward when they played against Abbots Road seconds in Division Three, and it cost despite a good effort by Dave Silvester playing up. Vishal Parmar won three excellent sets for Abbots Road including a win over Tomas Oravec who won two, supported by two from Sheriff Makhani. The crucial singles came when 14-year-old Shreya Mehta beat Silvester in five, with Fahed Sacoor picking another up for Abbots before the Sparks easily took the doubles for a share of the spoils at 5-5.
A look through other results threw up some excellent individual full houses, including two in Division Three when Dave Small helped Arnsesby to a 7-3 win over Regent Sports, while Martin Taylor helped Great Glen to a 5-5 draw against Goons.
In Division Four Raju Rahul was also in good form for Abbots Road against Electricity, whom they beat 6-4 largely thanks to that maximum.
John Bowness (publicity officer)
October 13, 2014