Little cheer for teams on tough night

LAST Thursday saw the final set of preChristmas fixtures completed in the men’s North West Counties League - although festive cheer was in relatively short supply on court, with victorious teams from clubs in and around our town very much in a minority.

Of the 13 local sides, 10 had scheduled matches - but only four of those signed off for 2019 with wins.

Among them were Prestbury’s ‘Firsts’, who edged out their guests from Congleton by the odd match in five to stay seventh in Division Two East, courtesy of wins for Paul Lomas, Adam Colebatch and 17-year-old Jonny Murray.

Divisional leaders Bollington 1, meanwhile, fell to a first defeat since the season’s opening night, with only a victory by Rob Alcock to show for their efforts at home to a strong Warrington 2 side. But in spite of the 4-1 reverse, the ‘Bolly Firsts’ stay top, and have a 14-point advantage, going into the second half of the campaign.

In Division Three Central South, fourthplaced Bollington 2 beat close rivals New Mills 1 by the same scoreline at the village leisure centre - with teenagers James Walton (18) and George Lomas (15), as well as Stuart Arnold and Martin Ogden, triumphing. But Macclesfield 1 dropped a place to 13th, after visiting side Village Hyde won 3-2 to consign the hosts to a sixth successive defeat.

James Douglas and Annika Hall were both victorious on the night for Macc.

Prestbury 2 and Bollington 3 - in Divisions Three and Four South-East, respectively - enjoyed fixture-free evenings, while Bollington’s divisional companions Prestbury 5 suffered a 4-1 home defeat to Buxton, in spite of a walkover-win at fifth string against the four-strong visiting side.

A Prestbury ‘derby’ was the order of the evening in Division Four Central South - resulting in a 4-1 victory for the ‘Thirds’, who remain at the head of the table with a lead of 16 points, against the 10thplaced Fourth Team. Rich Curry, Mike Brauckmann, Paul Bartle and David Hunt all won for Prestbury 3, while junior player Kaamil Bhatti celebrated having recently turned 17, and boosted the pointscause of the ‘Fourths’, with a hard-fought, five-game triumph.

The long-time, unbeaten Fifth

Division South-East leaders Bollington 4 did not have a match, and, in the course of their inactivity, saw an eight-point lead turn into a 16-point deficit behind new tabletoppers Alderley Edge 7 - against whom they will do potentially decisive battle in the first fixture of 2020.

Elsewhere in the division, Macclesfield 2 stayed fourth following a 5-0 win at home to struggling Marple 4 - with Russ Stagg, Craig Hulme, Ian Hill, Dave Birtwistle and Jean-Baptiste Laurens ensuring the collective rout.

But the ‘Macc Thirds’ - for whom Jon Stoker and Bill Ritchie were triumphant in consolation - slipped to a 3-2 defeat at New Mills 2, and consequentially saw themselves leapfrogged by their hosts into fifth place. And Prestbury 6 remained seventh, one position below Macclesfield 3, following a 5-0 defeat at home to promotionchasing Grove Park 6.

Three days earlier, in the Cheshire Ladies’ League Division Three (b), Prestbury’s ‘Seconds’ went down 4-1 at their counterparts from Grove Park, with just a fifth-string walkovervictory on the credit side, to finish the calendar year in sixth place.

This column will return four weeks from now, on 15 January.