These Dolphins normally hunt in the choppy waters of the Winter League’s Division 2, whilst our ‘B’ Team operate in the murky depths of the pond, devouring the odd stickleback, but generally being at the mercy of the bigger fish. Given the concentration of talent into 2 leagues, we knew we would be up against it. It then turned out that Dolphins had Ken & Denise Scott, surely the Posh “n” Becks of local table tennis, plus the powerful figure of Alan Cowburn.

We had the slightly rusty Terry Wassall, Dennis McGuinness, slowly returning to his former skill level and your team sec, showing how expensive coaching can be easily wasted on the wrong material.

Alan kicked off against Terry. After the usual tentative start by both players, Alan imposed himself on the match. His top spin returns were effective and Terry over hit some shots and Alan won 11-3. G2 was much more balanced, with Terry executing some successful smashes to lead at one point, but Alan held it together to win 13-11. Alan played with control to ease ahead in G3, while Terry produced one or two wild shots. Alan won 11-6, to take the match.

Dennis then made his re-entry into competitive TT against the fearsome Ken, with his trademark looped topspin. Although Dennis was rapidly getting into gear, he was caught out of position a couple of times and Ken eased to an 11-4 win in G1. Dennis continued to have difficulty with Ken’s spin and G2 matched the G1 score. Ken just allowed Dennis to make mistakes in G3. Dennis rallied to 4-5, but Ken, in true Dolphin style, kept flipping it back and ran out 11-5.

Robin won the only game of the night for Popps against Denise, playing aggressively to win 12-10 with some effective smashes, but Denise held her game together to win the next 3, 11-8, 11-9 and 11-3 as Robin ran out of concentration.

Terry then worked hard in G1 against Ken to lose 11-8, but his energy fell away as Ken won the next two games 11-2 & 11-5.

Alan then took on Robin, who produced some spectacular shots which may have involved a degree of luck, plus a number of suicidal ones. Alan shares the Dolphin trademark top spin, honed to perfection at secret topspin training camps in the Yorkshire Dales, and it continued to work well. He won G1 11-8, but Robin’s effort dwindled as he won the next 11-2 and 11-5.

Dennis met Denise in the next match and it looked promising as Dennis moved to 6-5 with a good smash. But Denise turned it round by steady play to win 11-6. G2 was much more competitive with the two of them trading blows and staying level at 10-10. But Denise held her nerve and executed a well-timed smash to win 12-10. At this point, your correspondent’s handwriting start to confuse the 2 Dens, but Denise emerged to win 11-8. Robin’s match against Ken can be described briefly: 11-4, 11-5 & 11-6 to Ken who bamboozled him with a new side spin serve and his usual top spin.

This match was played on a very warm evening and whilst Denise kept her glowing fragrance, some of the men were starting to hum with heat. Terry may have been affected by heat and exhaustion as he slumped to 11-3 to Denise. He summoned unexpected reserves of energy to take G2 to 13-11, an encounter which could have gone either way, but faded a little in G3 to go down 11-9.

In the final match, Alan took on Dennis, who was rapidly returning to form after a gap of a few years but was not dealing with Alan’s spin service. He managed some longer rallies, but often lost the crucial point. Alan won 11-5 and raced away in G2 to win 11-2. Dennis played much better in G3 and was level at 7-7.  Alan managed to tempt Dennis out of position on a couple of occasions and moved him around, to win 11-8.

As expected, Dolphins were the dominant creatures in the pond with Popps being snapped up in their menacing jaws or being flipped off the table. Denise played steady intelligent TT, while Ken & Alan used their top spin to good effect. Dennis is on a rapid learning and fitness curve, Terry needs to rediscover the halcyon days of his bus depot feats and Robin should perhaps stick to the written word. The game was, as usual, played in a friendly and positive style, with Dolphins being generous with encouragement. However, it did not stop them eating us up and spitting out our bones while their flippers united in happy applause. They then swam off into the ocean, occasionally breaking the surface with spectacular jumps and leaps as they cruised into the sunset, leaving Popps floundering in their wake.

For POPPs B first match of the Summer League season they faced up to Spartans, a division 2 team in the normal season. Their full team did not turn up so Steve Hanson and Rod Veal were joined by Joe Broadbent from the Rams team. The POPPs B contingent was made up of two new members, Tom Sunderland and Alwyn Kershaw, and regular B team player Terry Wassall who acted as captain for the night.

As expected, it turned out to be a tough night for POPPs. Tom started proceedings by taking on Steve and lost in 3 games, 9 -11, 5-11, 3-11. Steve countered Tom’s  patient pushes by pushing back so some fairly long rallies ensued. Every now and then one or the other would sense an opportunity to attack and play a more aggressive shot, Steve getting a higher percentage on the table and generally looking more comfortable in attack than Tom. Alwyn then took on Joe and got off to a steady start by losing the first game 7-11. However, his accuracy and consistency improved in the second to take it 11-5 aided by a fair number of ambitious backhand smashes from Joe that rarely connected with the table. Joe steadied down in the 3rd game and played more conservatively but Alwyn’s game continued to improve taking the game to 10 all but unfortunately just couldn’t press home his advantage to win it, losing 10-12. Joe then won the 4th fairly easily 5-11 to take the set 3 games to 1. Terry then played Rod to complete the first 3 sets winning 3 games to nil, 11-1, 11-8 and 11-7. Terry was always fairly comfortable and was probably helped by the fact that Rod was playing with a new set of rubbers and was still getting used to them. Apparently he had to change them as the previous rubbers were declared illegal by having the wrong sorts of pimples. I’m amazed that the Pimple Police spotted this but no doubt some ultra-competitive barrack room lawyer spotted them, measured them with a micrometer and found them to be a nanothingy too long (or short, or wide or simply unseemly in some respect). 

This was to prove POPP’s only win of the evening. Alwyn lost to Steve in 3 straight games who was playing better as the night progressed. Tom lost to Rod in 3 games despite keeping in touch for the first 2 games and taking the 3rd game to 10 all. This turned out to be an excellent game with some remarkable rallies mixing attack with defense and the momentum swinging either way. Rod took the game 14-12 and the set 3 games to 1. Terry’s match against Joe was swiftly and efficiently lost 3 games to nil. The first 2 games looked as if he had a chance getting to 8 all and 9 all in each but this was thanks to some ambitious attacking shots that caught Joe by surprise on a number of occasions. However, Joe had the trickiest serve of the night and produced a bamboozeler whenever he was in a bit of a tight corner and went on to win both games without conceding another point. The third game was a formality as Terry became even more ambitious, flailing out in all directions. This tactic certainly produced the most spectacular winning shots of the evenings. However, after each spectacular winner, 2 or 3 further points had already been lost even before the applause had died. Joe took the game 11-5 and the set 3 games to nil.

The last 3 sets continued the pattern. Alwyn lost to Rod in 3 straight games despite leading in all three. On each occasion Rod dug in and just got everything back until Alwyn made a mistake. The last game went to 10 all with Rod running out the winner 14-12. Terry then took on Steve, again losing in 3 straight games. The second game was very competitive with neither player making a conclusive break. The game was level pegging all the way up to 15 all when Steve took the final points to win 17-15. Finally Tom played Joe who won in straight games.

In many ways this was a satisfactory evening. The match was played in good spirits and we had quite a few laughs. This is primarily what the Summer League is all about. We all acquitted ourselves reasonably well against better and more experienced opposition. Tom and Alwyn both improved aspects of their play throughout their games and with a little more experience and confidence will be converting more of their close games into wins rather than near misses. We all need to learn that patience and playing within our limits is probably the secret to success at our level. This is a lesson I have not learnt over 2 seasons so far and probably never will.