In the
Newmarket Badminton Federation leagues a topsey turvey season saw some top
teams slide whereas the season’s best performances were mainly from new
entries. Last year’s Ladies champions
Ely slid to third, behind Impington who headed five teams within 2 points of
each other but Abbeygate, re-entering the leagues after several years, were
dominant. Soham’s experience was rather
different winning only 1 game out of 48 played. Ely Men’s A also slid to sixth in the First Division but their
new men’s entry blew away the opposition in the Men’s Third Division with the
league’s only 100% winning record, conceding just 6 games and Ely’s new Mixed B
entry similarly won the second division, although Littleport gave them a run
for their money. Newly promoted Brandon
were so close to winning the men’s First division at their first attempt but St
Edmunds went one better than last year regaining the title after some years
with a superior games advantage over Brandon.
Crossways A face the drop from this Division.
Littleport‘s
Men’s team, relegated last season, went
one better than their Mixed winning the Second Division 2 points ahead of
Newmarket A so should return to the First Division. Burwell B managed to escape relegation from this Division last
year but again find themselves in relegation spot. In the Mixed First Division Con Club were the only team to retain
their title, although St Phillips A were very close behind and both were well ahead
of the rest. The surprise is that
Newmarket A, who struggled to field a regular first division strength team,
find themselves in relegation spot so with the Men’s A team narrowly failing to
get promotion will start next season with only their ladies team playing First
Division.
But a more major concern
for Newmarket and indeed St Phillips, who both play club and matches at
Scaltback Middle School, is that the venue is due to close before the next
season so it is hoped that Suffolk County Council will be doing their upmost to
avoid losing such a valuable community facility.
Rushworth
Littleport
rounded off a generally successful season with a Rushworth cup final appearance
but would probably accept that they didn’t do themselves justice, particularly
in the mixed, so even with the handicap were unable to snatch the trophy from
Impington, who win for the second time in three years.
Two
interesting snippets:
Last
season St Phillips managed to field their B team at two locations on the same
night using different squad members, but this season they had the opposite
problem and had only 6 players to field B and C teams at home so, within league
rules, two players played in both (with the courtesy of Borders A and B) and
won both matches 4-2 on the last rubbers.
Despite
the new rally point scoring system being used by the league for five years
(well over a thousand matches), none had yet gone the distance to 30-29 points,
so a milestone this season when St Phillips’s Phil May and Sally Peyton pushed
Newmarket’s Alistair Davidson and Helen Snowden who reached the maximum score.
Other to follow…