In their latest summer league match Popps B (as last week, Alwyn, Tom and Terry) met the formidable Marsh Cons – the dad and son pairing of Adrian and Tom Normanton plus John Schofield. Once again Popps B salvaged a smidgen of respectability by winning one set and avoiding a white wash. Whereas Alwyn was our star player last week, Terry achieved this exalted position this week clearly benefiting from having played last week rather than the previous 3 week break.

The first 3 sets made it clear we were in for another tough night. The No. 1 pairing of Alwyn and Adrian played first and Popps quickly lost this set 7-11, 8-11 and 2-11. Alwyn seemed to be getting into the match in the 2nd game but Adrian turned on his efficient forehand and backhand topspin loops and drives in the 3rd and Alwyn put too many returns off the end of the table. There were many quite long defensive rallies too, a characteristic of all the sets (except Terry’s!), but generally we were first to either make a mistake or lose patience and go for a winner – too often in practice a loser.

Tom then played Tom Normanton and, despite pushing him close in all 3 games and having a 5 point lead in the second, lost 9-11, 7-11 and 9-11. Tom N had a similar range of shots as his dad – a reliable top spin back hand drive, an effective aggressive forehand and being prepared to push defensively if required.  However, he seemed to be more impetuous and  error prone than Adrian so offered the other Popps players perhaps a glimmer of hope. Terry then played his first set against John and lost rapidly 5-11, 7-11 and 5-11, a combination of poor returns of service and too many attacking shots flying into the net or beyond the table.

In the next two sets Tom and Alwyn lost in 3 straight games to Adrian and John respectively. They both switched strategies from patient defense to hit and hope ‘winners’ but neither tactic payed of with too many mainly unforced errors. The next set produced Popps only success of the evening with Terry beating Tom N in five long, hot and sweaty games. Terry lost the first game 8-11 but it was evident that he was playing to young Tom’s strengths with rallies consisting of drives and counter drives with Tom’s rhythm and reactions coming out on top more often than not.  At this point Terry remembered reading somewhere that in top class table tennis the average rally length was between 3 and 4 strokes with the most common sequence being serve, return, attacking winner. So he decided to raise his game and deploy this tactic. Whatever the result, it would mean he would get home earlier. Or so he thought. Terry won the next two games 11-9, 11-9 using mostly a very short serve followed by an attack on the return. Amazingly this kept him in the game and seemed to discombobulate Tom. On receiving Tom’s serves, Terry concentrated on returning safely rather than attacking it and began to put some long high shots in, tempting Tom to smash. Despite some spectacular winners the impetuosity spotted in an earlier set led to some misses at the critical stage of each game and Terry scraped home in each. The 4th game looked as if  Tom would win it 11-0 as he raced to a 7-0 lead as Terry lost concentration and went back to feeding Tom’s best shots as he had done in the first game. Facing a whitewash for the game he dug in and eventually lost 7-11, so all was on the final fifth game. Reverting to the successful tactics of the 2nd and 3rd games Terry pulled out a 5-0 lead and then, determined to win at least every other point from then on, ran out the winner 11-5 taking the set 3 games to 2.

After that it was business as usual and Marsh Cons took the last 3 sets. Alwyn took a game off Tom N and Terry took a game off Adrian but we never looked likely to take another set.

The match was played in good spirits and the opposition very kindly refrained from commenting on Alwyn’s enormous floral shorts. I don’t know what dress code Alwyn adheres to but it is probably as well if we don’t attempt to decipher it. How he spends his spare time is entirely between him and his advisers.