Yawar Abbas reflects on a winning start for Manchester/Pontefract ...
The Season so Far…
Week 1 - Beachill Clinches First Win
Home v Wolverhampton 7-10-03
We started the season with the visit of Wolverhampton, complete with their new star signing, Anthony Ricketts. The match started shakily for the home side with James Willstrop looking out of sorts against the experienced and tenacious Mark Cairns and Madeline Perry unluckily going down 9-7, 9-7, 10-9 to Shelley Kitchen. Things improved with Willstrop digging out a scrappy 3-2 win, and Marcus Berrett dismissing Joey Barrington 9-5, 9-4, 9-1.
Unfortunately, Nick Taylor couldn’t close out the match against Alex Gough slipping to a 9-2, 9-7, 9-6 defeat.
So, as occurred many times last season, our fortunes were left in the hands of Lee Beachill, up against World Number 7, Anthony Ricketts. Ricketts had controversially beaten Beachill twice in the previous season, both 3-2, with Beachill unhappy with the refereeing on both occasions. This time Beachill recovered a deficit in the first, only to lose the second and go 7-1 down in the third. Incredibly, he came back to win the game and take a 2-1 games lead. Ricketts came back to emphatically to level at 2-2 in the tie and 2-2 in the match. With momentum on Rickett’s side, a good start was crucial for Beachill, and with a mixture of great play and good fortune he swept to 5-1. Ricketts fought bravely but the Pontefract player was not to be denied and claimed a thrilling 3-2 victory and the match for his team!
Elsewhere, champions Edgbaston started the season with a crushing 4-1 victory over last season’s finalists, Nottingham.
Week 2 – Berrett Secures Unlikely Victory
Away v Nottingham 28-10-03
It didn’t look good! With the match score 2-0 to Nottingham and Vanessa Atkinson 2-1 down to Natalie Grinham and Jon Rooney 1-1 with Sam Miller on the adjacent court, a betting man would have had his money on the home team. But such is the character of our squad this year an unlikely victory was fashioned from this difficult position.
With the teams top three players all away at PSA events, the strength in depth of the squads was to be fully tested. Gary Thwaite made a return to National League after 5 years, going down narrowly to Nottingham local player, Nick Douglas.
Andy Whipp, playing at second string let a 2-0 lead slip to the 11th hour call up, Dylan Bennett from Holland.
Vanessa Atkinson, making her National League debut, managed to recover from 2-1 down against the world number 7, Natalie Grinham and Jon Rooney made the short trip from his home in Nottingham, to level the match for the visitors against Sam Miller.
Down to the number ones, with Nottingham surely favourites, fielding their new signing David Evans, British Open Champion as recently as 2000 against Marcus Berrett. However, right from the start Berrett was on top, clinically volleying and forcing a relentless pace, he was simply too good for Evans and claimed a 10-8, 9-5, 9-6 win, and the second 3-2 match win for his team.
Meanwhile Edgbaston claim their second 4-1 win over Manchester Northern and Duffield subject Wolverhampton to their second defeat.
Week 3 – Champions Defeated Amid Controversy
Away v Edgbaston
Once again Manchester-Pontefract managed a 3-2 match win – but it could not have been closer, or more controversial…
The match started predictably enough with Edgbaston’s five times World Champion Sarah Fitz-Gerald overpowering Becky Botwright and Marcus Berrett maintaining his 100% start to the season, with a 3-0 win over Hadrian Stiff.
The key match turned out to be James Willstrop against Del Harris. With Harris looking sharp and Willstrop somewhat drained from recent travelling, the match ebbed and flowed to a deciding game. Harris reached match ball at 10-9 and thought he had won the match with a ‘stroke’, only to be granted a ‘let’. With the crowd in uproar, Willstrop kept his cool to close out the match 12-10.
Olli Touminen then levelled the match with a 3-1 victory for the home side over Nick Taylor and once again Lee Beachill was left with the responsibility of playing the deciding tie. There was to be no further controversy as Beachill gave his opponent , Adrian Grant, no chance in a comprehensive 9-2, 9-3, 9-6 victory and lift Manchester-Pontefract to the top of the Group A table.
Elsewhere, Wolverhampton claimed their first win, 3-2 over Northern and Nottingham their first win, 4-1 over Duffield.
Manager’s Verdict;
So after three matches, we sit on top of the table with three 3-2 wins and while we have been lucky, we were certainly due some good fortune after losing close matches throughout last season.
I feel we have now beaten the three real contenders for the play off positions in our group and if we can force victories tonight and against Duffield in December, we would go into the Christmas break unbeaten.
With Vanessa’s availability looking good for the second half, we would then be in a strong position to stake a claim for our first play off finish.
However, all teams are capable of upsets and both Manchester Northern and Duffield will prove to be tough opposition we cannot underestimate.
