Orsted A take Division Two title
THE main interest towards the end of Grimsby, Cleethorpes & District Table Tennis Association 2023-24 season came from the lower divisions.
Ørsted A, comprising of captain Colin Woodford and two promising junior players, Oscar Salt (16) and Tom Claypole (17), won the Division Two title.
Woodford, who has cerebral palsy and is a wheelchair user, led the way winning 39 of his 45 games to finish top of the individual averages.
He was strongly assisted by his team-mates who improved throughout the season.
Salt averaged 73.81 per cent for the season which was higher than he achieved in 22/23 playing in Division Three. He also won the Division Two individual trophy and was runner-up in the Junior Boys competition.
Claypole finished on 67 per cent which more than doubled his win percentage of the previous season, playing in the same division.
Division Three was the most competitive league with various leaders throughout the season.
However it was Ørsted B (Jenson Salt 13, William Varley 12, Thinula Withanage 14, Steve Ambridge, Chloe Osborne) who took the title.
In fourth at Christmas, they won their last eight matches gaining four points on six occasions for winning 8-2 or better. It was the junior players who hit the heights with Oscar’s brother Jenson topping the individual averages and winning the under-15 boys title and Withanage taking the Division Three individual title.
However, special mention must be made of their captain Ambridge who was in his second season after returning from a long break.
In the first he only won three games, but through practice and losing two stone in weight, in the second half of this season he averaged 50 per cent, winning at least one game in his last six matches.
This enabled his team to get the vital fourth point on each occasion.
Keelby Table Tennis Club (Tim Hughes, Peter Briggs, Simon Edlington, Roger Hoyes) who were leading at Christmas, just held on to second place from Ball Busters (James Kirby, Luke Fields, Jack Corke, David Rowell).
Woodford and Osborne, who has spina bifida, provide on behalf of the North East Lincolnshire Disability Sports Forum, an Inspiring Young People/Raising Awareness Course in local primary schools free of charge.
In this they demonstrate table tennis and boccia and provide information about Paralympic sports.
The Premier League was won inevitably by ASL whose team comprises the top six players in the league (Sean Ward, John Hancock, John Aberra, Jonathan Corry, Jack Blyth and Aaron Wakeling).
The team gained maximum points throughout the season and only dropped four individual games out of 150.
A newly formed team, Ping-pong Titans (Anthony Tindall, Chloe Lingard, Ryan Mitchell, Jack Bradley, Finlay Keal), had a good first season to finish a remote second and were unbeaten in the league apart from their matches with ASL.
In Division One, Louth (Ian Turner, Ivan Danov, Bob Leafe, Mick Corry) got off to an inauspicious start when they lost Corry through injury after one game. They then struggled for a team when Danov dropped out a couple of matches later through work commitments. They were helped out by reserve Rob Cowling until Sean Brown, an ex-Premier player, stepped into the breach. With Brown’s help, Louth went on to win the title. Turner and Leafe played in every game and with the incentive of fighting for the title improved on their win percentage of the previous season.
THB (Kevin Cooper, Michael Louca, Bob Want and John Daley) were another team beset by problems throughout the season but, with the aid of reserves, managed to secure second place.