Lions are one of the contenders for winning the division this year so POPPs B expected a tough night and so it turned out to be. Terry W, John M and Alan W of POPPs took on Ben Speak, John Tallis and Hannah Kendal and generally gave a good account of themselves with 4 sets going to 5 games. The match took rather longer than usual partly because of the flip chart scoring system (it is rumoured Alan hid the electronic scoring consuls because of a children’s event earlier in the day) and partly because Lions team members kept disappearing to other tables to play in between their games.

Terry and John got us off to a speedy and efficient start (in terms of time keeping that is) by losing the first two sets 0 – 3. Terry made too many mistakes against Ben due to having difficulty returning serve safely and resorting in the end to aggressive returns and hoping for the best. This kept him in touch but never close enough to fluke a game. John suffered a similar fate against John Tallis although there was some evidence that he was warming to the task toward the end.

Then, as is now customary, Alan produced the set of the night against Hannah. As is usual in Alan’s 5 game sets, he lost the first one – always behind by a couple of points and never catching up. He won the second 11 – 8 after being behind but this time steadying his returns and raising his concentration and consistency. Backing a bit further away from the table he gave himself more room for his heavily chopped returns forcing Hannah to hit a bit harder and make a few more errors. The 3rd game went to Hannah fairly easily 7 – 11, a little surprising as this was mainly due to Alan making more errors than he normally does at this stage of the game. However, he refocused for the 4th game from 8 – 10 down to win 12 – 10. This was aided by an outrageous net shot that teetered on the net cord holding the outcome of the match in the balance. It trickled down on Hannah’s side of the net and kept Alan in the game to go on and win. If it had fallen Alan’s side the set would have gone to Hannah by 3 games to 1.  The final game went to Alan fairly comfortably in the end 11 – 9, always in front and never caught. Hannah hit quite a few returns long in this game probably because Alan was varying his chopped returns with an occasional floated return. These looked pretty much the same as his chopped returns but with almost no backspin.

In his second set against Ben John played some of his best table tennis so far this season, taking him to 5 games. His block returns of Ben’s top spin drives were fast and accurate, and his selection of back and forehand attacking shots was spot on.  After losing the first game 8 – 11, John won the next two long hard games 12 – 10 and 13 – 11. The intensity and duration of the games were beginning to take their toll however. Before the 4th game, to every one’s horror, John appeared to be taking his top off. In the event he was just mopping his forehead with it but the Lions were very near to conceding the match and beating a hasty retreat. Once order had been restored John lost the 4th game 9 – 11 and, pretty well knackered, lost the 5th game quite quickly 5 – 11.

We will pass quickly over Terry’s speedy defeat by Hannah 0 – 3. It was only when he was 2 games down he realised he had been playing with someone elses bat. Sadly, reverting to his own bat made not a jot of difference.

The next two sets went to 5 games before POPPs lost them both. Alan came up against John Tallis for another hard fought set. After (as usual) losing the first game 11 – 13, he settled down to minimising John’s attacking opportunities. This led to some rather over ambitious and frustrated big hits from John with sufficient of them missing to give Alan the next 2 games 12- 10 and 11 – 7.  John settled in the 4th game to take it 11- 9 so all was on the last. Alan was 5 – 3 up at the change round but then seemed to change his game. Errors crept into the solid defensive shots leading him to go for rather more winners than usual and the game drifted away from him losing 8 – 11 and the set 2 games to 3.

John then took on Hannah and won the first game 11 – 3. No doubt feeling guilty about so heartlessly abusing a young woman, he promptly lost the next game 3 – 11 to even things up. Honour satisfied, he soon got back into the groove and won the 3rd game 11 – 9. By now John was leaning on the table between points. Due no doubt in part to John’s tiredness Hannah went on to win the next 2 games 5 – 11, 3 – 11 and the set 3 – 2.

All that remaind was for Alan to play Ben and Terry to play John Tallis. Ben played his best table tennis of the evening and beat Alan 8 – 11, 8 – 11, 9 – 11. As Alan said, Ben was just too good on the day. Terry lost to John 8 – 11, 3 – 11 and 7 – 11 having particular difficulty in returning heavy side spin serves.

It was a long hard night played in good spirit. POPPs came away feeling they had acquitted themselves well, givne our psoition near to the bottom of the division, and made the Lions team work to win some of the games and sets at least.