The match got off to a late start as the POPPs team, playing away, had taken the venue details from the Handbook which was incorrect. After a number of phone calls and, in Terry Wassall’s case, a stop at the Hare and Hounds pub and Old Town Cricket Club for directions, we all found our way to the chapel where the match duly took place. It was all rather hurried and our reporter was not able to make any notes for this record but  the facts are roughly as follows:  we were hammered. Terry W played at number 1 (as he was first to arrive and at least got a bit of a warm up). He took a game off each of the Hare’s numbers 2 and 3 but lost to their number 3 (who turned out to be a well known table tennis coach in the Yorkshire area!)  0-3. David Mitchell  also won a couple of games over the evening but hasn’t  really get into his stride yet after a long layoff and injury. However, he is gradually getting there and will undoubtedly be more of a force in the second half of the season.

In many ways the POPPs star of the evening was new member Joan in her first ever competitive match. She lost all 3 of her set, like the rest of the team, but improved noticeably as the evening went on. Her basic blocking game was greatly aided by a level of mobility that was quite alien to the normal POPPs B style of play and, as her confidence grew and she put a little more pace and aggression into her more attacking shots, she began to win some points very convincingly. She will undoubtedly become a valuable addition to the B team over the rest of the season. She had benefited of course by watching the other B team players and working out that she had to do something else! So we lost 0 - 9 but against a very good team that will undoubtedly finish very high in the division this year.

There is no doubt the B team are struggling this year and it is easy to become somewhat demoralised. However, given that the better POPPs players are in an A team this year, and last year most of our matches had at least 2 of what are now A team players in the team, the B team is doing pretty much as well as last year. If we keep trying to  learn and keep a positive and constructive attitude, there is no reason why we shouldn’t improve over the season and have a really good run at it next season. In many ways the B team is starting from scratch this year with 2 new players and the 2 players from last year who had played the least number of matches.