First our official complaints (not excuses I hasten to add) :–
 
1. They tried to dint our enthusiasm by telling us that they won  last winter Third Division  by a  margin of 30 points. Totally out of order.
2. Their No 2, David, topped Div 3 averages last year and he regularly runs marathons  (fit bugger !).  Surely this cannot be allowed ?
3. Captain Mick, small in physique but big in bed, brought  back fresh from his honeymoon in Cyprus and ready to go.  Foreplay like this should be banned (or he should be quarantined for at least a week on his return.
4. John, our star player complained he had to play against 2 people at the same time (although the scorer was ‘ours’).  A definite legitimate claim.
 
Now the match highlights.
 
1. Peter won his first 2 games against their No.1, Michael in magnificent style (but then managed to turn victory into defeat).
2. John took 1 off the newly wed (game, not woman) even more gloriously.
3. Alan showed great improving style and playing some excellent rallies against their David.
 
They could not match our highlights, but in the end thanks to 9 lucky results ended up just in front.
 
A prize is up for grabs to the first person to guess the actual result. It is the actual match ball, old and flawed just like POPPS.  (Anyone or their friends or relations with any knowledge of TT is banned from entering.

Spartans won 7-2.  POPPs team David, Peter and Terry.  David was the only set winner for POPPs with a win of 3-0 against Spartan’s Steve Hanson and a hard fought 3-2 win over Michael Mullins.

Peter took a game from all 3 players, Michael, Karthik Shetty and Steve. Terry failed to win a single game thus confiming his position as the POPPs no. 3.

Result POPPS 4-5 Tradesmen Team

Peter 1 win, David 2 wins, John 1 win.

A close match which went to the last game in which Peter was unable to get the better of his wiley opponent (Ken, Denise’s husband). Could have gone either way but we couldn’t complain in the end and the learning curve continues to curve.

POPPs (Peter, John Taylor and Terry) faced up to the Evergreens (Mick, Dave and Mark) in confident but deluded mood. To cut to the chase, POPPs lost 9 sets to nil. We had our moments, some good rallies where a passing observer may have briefly assumed a hard fought close match was in progress, and even a few games were won. John took a game off Mark, 11-8. Terry took Mick to 5 games winning 2 of them 11-5 and 13-11. Peter took 2 games from Mark winning them 11-9 and 11-5. John took 2 games from Mick, 11-8 and 11-5. And Peter took 1 game from Dave, 11-8 . Altogether we won 8 games but no sets. 4 of our losing games went to 1 all. But it is hard to pretend we were in with much of a chance. We sometimes come away from a losing match thinking that, all in all, the opposing team were not really that  much better than us and next time it could be different.  I don’t think any of us thought this would be the case with the Evergreens who always seemed to have a couple of extra gears when they needed them.