The Burnham & District Table Tennis League title race is as tight as an otter’s pocket this season. All three contenders were on show this week and they have somehow contrived to narrow the margins yet again.

Second-placed Cold Norton B defeated Leaders Fambridge in a tight 6-4 win, and third-placed Mapledene A gained ground with a hard-fought 8-2 triumph over Woodham B.

Cold Norton B travelled the short distance to Fambridge this week for the top of the table clash – both teams fully loaded. A good win by Fambridge would see them take full control of the leadership contest and their odds would surely tighten significantly.

But Cold Norton are still on for the double this season and have the wherewithal to make this happen. It didn’t take long for Cold Norton to impress their credentials upon the Fambridge Galacticos as they won all three of the opening salvos – Eric Green beating Mark Stones, Sam Lowman overcoming Gary Young, and Ian Wall triumphing over John Poysden.

Wall went on to beat Stones but Green fell to Young and Poysden made up for his early loss by taking the Lowman scalp in five tricky sets. So a more respectable 4-2 scoreline at the break and this was improved with a doubles point for Fambridge.

Wall completed his impressive treble and Poysden bagged a noteworthy win over Green to make it 5-4 to the Nortonians going into the final battle of the evening. Stones, eager to bother the scoreboard for his side, welcomed the young contender Lowman into the home side’s Octagon. But that was as scary as it got for Lowman who went about his business with some aplomb for a straight sets victory and the overall 6-4 winning margin – a score that opens up the door for both Cold Norton and Mapledene in the chasing pack to push on take the challenge to Fambridge.

Mapledene A travelled to South Woodham for what should have been a straightforward affair against lowly Woodham B. But despite the final 8-2 scoreline the match was pretty even and you have to feel the pain of Woodham’s Dan Patynski who took all of the Mapledeners to five sets but came away without a point to show for his efforts.

A truly enjoyable evening was had by all with some phenomenal play from all six players. Mapledene’s George Reeves came out of the blocks firing on all cylinders playing like Boris Becker in his finest serve and volley days. A Reeves’ serve is tough to face and tough to read and if an opponent can return the serve it is often high and exactly where Reeves wants it and wham-bam-thank-you-mam the subsequent smash is way past you before you can react. This is exactly what happened in the opening match against Woodham’s Harry Sawford as Reeves won in a blastfest three straight sets.

In his next game Reeves’ serve and volley style tactics were still in play but his opponent Patynski was able to retrieve more serves and was winning the lion’s share of the longer rallies and this pattern ensued all the way to the bitter end of the fifth set where Reeves’ determination took him through to the victory.

Peter Barrett (pictured above) won both his opening singles – but again nothing straightforward as he had to battle past Sawford and Eamonn Hall with the majority of the legs going into deuce shootouts. Mapledene captain Reece Seddon was nursing an injury but still had his usual range of match winning shots – but again he was tested by both Hall in four sets, and then Patynski in a five-set marathon that saw Patynski turn in the lead at the ends switch dance in the deciding set but he was unable to match the experience of Seddon in this sudden death corridor and fell just at the crucial moment.

So Woodham found themselves 0-6 down at the break despite having been competitive in five of the opening matches – that’s sport for you! So time for some half-time legendary team talking – well a debate as to who should play the doubles with the untried combo of Hall and Patynski emerging from the fracas. It was indeed a moment of genius as the new pairing dominated proceedings taking a pretty comfortable four-set victory with some great combination play and a hatful of outright winning strokes.

In the final singles run-in Barrett and Patynski played out a blinder with the differences being thinner than a bees wing. The opening three sets went beyond deuce as Patynski pulled back from 0-2 down to even up the contest – but Barrett held his nerve and punched his way to a fifth-leg knockout for his treble and a Player-of-the-Match award.

From somewhere deep within Hall kept pace with the early batterings from Reeves and was able to control the Reeves serve to such an extent that the match remained competitive and Hall took the opening leg. Much the same in the second leg although the nets and edges gods and the luck of the Irish all descended at once to help Hall stretch his lead, and then with more open play he was able to take the only singles point of the night for Woodham. So positive hat-tricks for Barrett and Seddon, and a more painful hat-trick for Patynski.

At the other end of the Arena, and plodding along at a much quicker pace, was the Woodham derby betwixt A and C. There was a shock in the opening match as the C team’s Hitman Chris Hancox blasted his way past the largely non-existent Dan Piggott defence for the C team to take an unexpected early lead. However, things got back to a more alphabetical order as the Penrose brothers rescued the A team from that opening match reverse and by half-time the A team were 4-2 to the good. Chris Penrose was the standout player notching another hat-trick for the A team for the overall 7-3 win, with Hitman Hancox winning 2 points for the C team.

Stow Maries A have extended their lead at the summit of Division 2 following a 7-3 derby victory over Stow B. Their top players Richard Storey and Gary Brignall both fired rapid hat-tricks in the singles, and although third wheel Malcolm Storey was unable to trouble the scoreboard in the singles he did combine with Brignall for a long and hard-fought doubles extra point.

The third Stow side in this division, Stow C, brought their run of 12 straight defeats to a stumbling halt as they hosted Woodham D and forced them from the brink of success to the disappointment of a draw as Stow’s Pete Layzell and Tim Huxtable won the final two singles matches to even up the match. In fact Stow won four of the final five matches for a tremendous morale boosting performance.

Woodham’s ever improving Peter Harverson was the best player on a show with an unbeaten treble, with Stow’s Pete Layzell taking a brace of wins for his troubled side. The doubles proved crucial and Stow’s pairing of Huxtable and Jean Chasmer held out for a rollercoaster five-set success.

Blackwater A continue to rattle cages, this week with a surprising 8-2 victory over Maldon B – with Captain Alan Scammell the standout performer with his third hat-trick of the season, including the notable scalp of top player Steve Aspland. Noah Sage and Denis Balic both recorded braces but were unable to beat the usually impenetrable Aspland.

The Mapledene C trio combined with two wins each for their 6-4 win away at Cold Norton D. Dennis Squirrell was the player of the match on countback but it was a close call with his colleagues Sue Body and Dave Woolmer. Neil Want proved the toughest Cold Norton nut to crack as he defeated both Body and Woolmer.

There is an air of alphabetical regularity across Division 3 as the Maldon C, D & E sides and the Blackwater C to F sides all fit into the divisional standings in the correct order with the two highest ranked Maldon collaborations holding the top slots.

Maldon C maintained their 100% win-rate this week but it needed a last-gasp come-from-behind final match of the night deciding leg victory by the war horse veteran Shirley Carroll to secure the 6-4 team victory. Carroll had lost her earlier singles battles so she will have been delighted to secure that point for her team.

Maldon’s Ella Sach was the player of match winning two singles and combining with Marty Englander for the important doubles point. Englander matched Sach’s stats whilst Dave Benstead and Chris Rolison both won two singles for the Blackwater Club.

Maldon D slipped into the runner-up position courtesy of a very decent 8-2 winning margin over Blackwater D – hat-tricks for Arthur Shadforth and James Raymond along the way, neither of whom dropped a set in singles or doubles all evening – in fact the match was notable for all 10 matches being won in straight sets with everyone home in time for the 9 o’clock news!

John Leavett from Maldon E will feel a little hard done by this week having notched a treble in the singles and partnering Patrick Coyne for the doubles win only to see his dreams of a team win dissipate before his eyes as the regular Blackwater trio of Phil West, Kath Little, and Deb Ginn won the remaining six singles to steal the team victory. West almost broke the Leavett winning streak in the final match going 2-1 up in sets before the Leavett comeback got into full swing.