|
Clean sweep for Town's Table Tennis Teams
The annual Town v Gown Table Tennis event was held at the Cricket Schools’ Hall at the University Sports Centre on Iffley Road and followed the same all-play-all format on six tables as last year. In spite of the festive counter-attractions of the Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day (February 14th 2010), City fielded strong sides, which enjoyed the most one-sided set of victories since the revival of the competition in 2007.
The University achieved only sporadic successes through Jingyu Sun in the Men’s 1st team, Johannes Ungelenk in Men’s 2nd and the excellent Maitreyi Shivkumar in the Ladies’ event.
Jeff Rigby was the only City player to get the better of Chinese star Jingyu, whose lightning fast attacking game has blossomed since he has been playing for Vikings in the local league. Like many, he is benefiting from the fine overall standard of our top division. Jeff played a canny game, counter-hitting from deep, to record an impressive 3-0 win. Jingyu saved the University’s blushes by beating Tony Stead (3-2), Jason Tustain (3-1) and Andy Misseldine (3-0). These were the Uni’s only successes in a 15-3 drubbing. Kidlington Saints’ Captain, Jason, newly promoted to the first team, fully justified his inclusion: he is enjoying a good season and keeps on improving. Andy (Capt), Jeff, Tony and Jason make up a very strong and experienced quartet, which would take some beating!
The 2nds’ match saw City run out winners by the same score-line of 15-3. Chris Lansley captained the side, but it was his RAL colleague Glen Freeman who took the maximum, along with Vikings’ Paul Borrowdale. Mike Aistrop made his debut for the City and was far from being out of place in this company, recording 3 wins. It was good to see two of our top Division Two players rising to the occasion so skilfully.
Anne Borrowdale (Capt), Sue Gogkor, Tatiana Bachkirova and Lianne Fisher made up the Ladies’ quartet, recording a comfortable 14-4 victory over the University, for whom Maitreyi Shivkumar was undefeated. Lianne was representing the City for the first time and flew the flag for Division 4 very capably – she was in fact the only City player to give the redoubtable Maitreyi a close match. Sue Gokgor deserves a special mention as being the only player (male or female) to have played in all the Town v Gown matches since its revival; she was particularly pleased with the presentation ceremony, as it was the first time in four years that we have actually managed to find the Ladies’ Trophy. We are grateful to the University for staging the event – the provision of chairs for spectators and refreshments for players was a big improvement – and we wish them well for the Varsity matches next week.
|
