POPPS B: John Mitchell, Terry Wassall and Alan Partington
Tradesmen 2: Marcus Reynolds, Sam Clayton and Matt Knapton

Our first sight of the opposition was a bit disconcerting. The Tradesmen’s team looked more like the sort of group you would find knocking on your door in shorts during  ’Bob a job’ week. It is only a slight exaggeration to say their combined ages where only just enough allow them to drink legally in a pub. By contrast the combined age of the POPPS team was about 190 years. But surely the guile and experience that comes with age would overcome the undoubted advantages of speed and mobility the youngsters would have? Well, no, they didn’t. In fact the youthful team looked every bit like an England Junior TT squad on a diet of E numbers and Sunny Delight while knocking up and carried on in much the same vein in the match. It looked like POPPS were in for a bit of a hammering.

John played against Marcus in the first set, probably their best player by a whisker (not that he had one). In the first game John was bamboozled by Marcus’ serve putting return after return into the net and losing quickly and efficiently 4 – 11. Marcus’ serves were varied but mainly heavy back spin with occasional side. All the Trademens’ serves adopted the current fashion of throwing the ball high in the air in order to prolong the receiver’s apprehension of what devilish swervery was to come. This seemed to mesmerise John to begin with but in the second game he began to return the serve better and a variety of well placed backhand flicks and aggressive blocks got him to 10 all before losing 10 -12. The third was equally promising for a while but was lost 8 -11. 

Then Terry played Sam Clayton. Sam was probably the youngest of the team and certainly the shortest. It was a little disconcerting viewing him at the other end of the table with not much more than his head, shoulders and bat showing. In this, but no other respect, he reminded me of Kilroy in the famous ‘Kilroy was here’ cartoons of the 1940s and 50s. Make no mistake, Sam is going to be a formidable player before long, especially when he grows a foot or two. Terry lost 9-11, 8-11 and 6-11 and there was every sign that Sam could have played better if he had needed to. Sam’s serve was less reliable than Marcus’s and quite a few went into the net. This, combined with a few of Terry’s extravagant smashes coming off, much to his and Sam’s surprise, made the score more flattering than it perhaps should have been. The third set was Alan against Matt, with Alan losing 4-11, 8-11 and 6-11.  Alan played well whenever a rally developed but Matt’s consistant top spin drives usually forced an error with the ball being played back too long.

All the Tradesmen team members were clearly very good and well coached players and it would be difficult to pick between them. I guess they probably played in the correct order with Marcus at No.1, Sam at No.2 and Matt at No. 3 but there wasn’t much in it and in any case it would be difficult to tell as none of them were called on to play to their maximums. Matt seemed to play a little more conservatively than the other two but he was also the oldest and probably took a little more pity on us than the younger tyros. Did he see worrying intimations of his own future staring back from the other end of the table?

Once these opening 3 sets were over POPPS began to fair a little better – partly because we began to return serve more consistently and find our shots and partly no doubt because the Tradesmen new they had the measure of us and took their collective foot off the accelerator. Terry took a game off Marcus losing 7-11, 11-8, 8-11 and6-11. Terry won the second game fairly convincingly as Marcus made some uncharacteristic errors and Terry began to get the tricky serve back more consistently. He also had a chance, or so he thought, in the 3rd game getting to 8-8. But the 4th game told the true story when Marcus put his game together at 6-6 and took the winning game without losing another point. John also took a game off Matt, losing 4-11, 4-11, 11-4 and 7-11. Matt seemed to lose concentration at times but probably never felt he couldn’t turn it on if he had too. John was at his most successful when he was able to block Matt’s top spin just after the bounce with a closed bat and directing the return sharply to gaps in Matt’s defense. Less successful where his attempts at top spin drives and smashes. Alan’s set against Sam started well and he won some excellent rallies, again by persistent blocking, to hold his own for a while in the first game, losing eventually 7-11. But Sam then tightened up his serve and concentration to win the next two comfortably, 4-11 and 0-11.

The final 3 sets followed much the same pattern. Terry, having lost the first 2 games to Matt 8-11 and 6-11, managed to win the third 11-6. But despite running Matt close for most of the 4th game, lost it 9-11. This was probably the closest POPPS came to winning a set.  John’s final set was lost 4-11, 2-11 and 4-11 with Marcus seemingly winning points at will, getting just about everything back with interest. Alan’s final set against Sam produced again some excellent rallies and he managed to run Sam close in the 3rd game which he eventually lost 12-14, having lost the first 2 games 7-11 and 5-11.

It is difficult to take many positives from this game. The the lads clearly have the potential, given their age and current standard of play, to go on to play in higher divisions of the Halifax League and, who knows, beyond. But even if they cannot be a benchmark for the more stately POPPS B team members, we also have a fair bit of room for improvement and no doubt we will. The best that can be said is that POPPS B managed to win more games this time having lost to Tradesmen 2 last October by the same overall score. Small comfort!