National Junior League – report by Sam Henderson. January 26th.
The Colebridge quartet of ; Sam Henderson , Dapo Balogun , Todd Marshall and Jamie Fellows played a hard 5 matches in the penultimate weekend in the top division of The National Junior League.
Firstly Colebridge were up against it as we were playing a Wood Green A side , who previously beat us 4-2 , and the result again was the same, with Colebridge losing in another close encounter 4-2, I won both of my games and Dapo Balogun only narrowly losing in a 5 set battle to the talented Ryan Wheeler.
Colebridge were keen to improve and get the ball rolling, it was not to be as we were shocked into another 4-2 defeat to Bromsgrove and Redditch “A”, again I won both my games and Dapo Balogun lost both his games 11-9 in 5 sets.
In our third game Colebridge faced a very strong team from Coventry, as all three players were county participants, and proved narrowly too good on this occasion with them beating us 4-2. Myself and Dapo Balogun were both delighted to beat Warwickshire Cadet number 2 George Alison.
The afternoon session saw Colebridge pulled together and after a much needed team talk from coach Eddy Lynn, all 4 players benefited from his words of wisdom, as we went on to beat Hamsted “A” 5-1 , myself winning 2 as did Dapo Balogun and Todd picked up his first of the day. With this new found confidence we went on to defeat the previously unbeaten Bankfield 4-2, showing our class being the only team to stretch this squad of high quality , I won both my games against unbeaten opponents , and Dapo beat the number one from Bankfield, this was very possibly the “Match of the Tournament ” with the long counter hitting rallies watched by all the parents in the gymnasium. It really was a brilliant win for him against the higher ranked player and this , together with Todds victory, ended the day on a high note and keeps us handily placed in the table in third place.
Next session really should be a great battle. With the added support of Neil Wheatley we should aim for glory.
Today individual scores – Sam 9/10 Dapo 4/10 Todd 2/6 and Jamie 0/4 . Overall myself 30/32 Dapo 21/32 Todd 5/10 and Jamie 11/22.