The non-available of several players, some due to other table tennis commitments, necessitated a re-shuffle for both Cippenham teams when the second weekend of this season’s Senior British Clubs League took place on Saturday and Sunday. Dave Barr, who already plays for the club in the Veterans’ British Clubs League, was drafted in to spearhead the senior first team and made an immediate impact in the first crucial match of the weekend. The second team saw youngsters Louis Alexander and the Prasanna Kumar brothers, Bharath and Sai, join and all played important roles in securing valuable points for their team.

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Dave Barr made all the difference in the first team’s opening match of the weekend against Horsham Spinners. This was a must win match for Cippenham and Dave got his team off to a great start by beating Joe Sheard 11-9 in the fifth and deciding game. Dave’s great strength is his defence, rare amongst today’s players who mostly favour all-out attack, and his immense determination produces some wonderfully entertaining encounters. However, the lead was short lived as Rob Hansell lost out by an even tighter margin against Jacob Evans and Andy Norwood failed to make a mark on Oleh Biletskyi. Martin Adams then equalised the score against Ben Watson before he and Rob suffered a rare doubles defeat to put the Sussex team 3-2 up. Dave completed his brace with a 3-0 win over Evans and Andy came good with a very impressive display to defeat Sheard 3-2. After Rob had made quick work of Ben Watson a winning margin of 5-2 was established and so it mattered less that Martin lost the final set against Biletskyi to make the final score 5-4 in Cippenham’s favour. This was an important result that ultimately leapfrogged Cippenham over their opponents and out of the relegation zone.

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Saturday afternoon brought an exciting encounter with Finsbury, the team that finished the weekend top of the division. Cippenham drove their opponents all the way and with a bit of luck could have won the match. Of the five sets that required a deciding game, three were lost by Cippenham. The match swung on the three match points that Andy had against Munib Ahmad which, if he had succeeded, would have equalised the match score at 4-4. Those points faded away and by the time Martin had lost the final encounter to Hassan El Kakkour the final score became 6-3 to Finsbury with Rob starring for the hosts by winning twice and sharing a doubles success with Martin.

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Sunday morning’s match was a bit of a banker against bottom of the table Brighton 2. With Dave Barr not available until the afternoon, Tom Windram was drafted in and excelled in winning his two matches against Billy Keegan and Angus Priestley-Tonner. Rob Hansell and Martin Adams also won both their two matches while Andy Norwood added to the 7-2 final score.

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The final match of the weekend produced a disappointing 4-5 loss to London Academy. Rob, Andy and Martin all won one apiece, the doubles set was also won but Dave Barr could make little impression on either Ludwig Ebenius or Gabriel Achampong.

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The patched-up Cippenham second team started with a closely-fought match against Newton Abbot. Jamie Woodford enjoyed a great deuce-in-the-fifth win over Mike Hugh but had earlier suffered a close defeat while playing well to the wily Kevin Nicholls whose long range topspin defence Jamie was ultimately unable to penetrate often enough. Louis Alexander and Bharath Prasanna Kumar both beat the Devon side’s number four player Wim Faassen and Jamie and Bharath won the doubles, an excellent win against two very good and experienced players.

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For the afternoon match, Cippenham faced bottom of the table Horsham and duly won 7-2. Sai Prasanna Kumar replaced his older brother for this match and the England Under-10 champion produced a display that belied his young age. Horsham’s only successes came from Arsalan Shah who defeated both Louis and Sai 11-9 in the fifth. Player of the match Jamie and Jaiden Caldeira were untroubled by their opponents and Jaiden and Louis shared a win in the doubles.

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From playing the bottom team, the roles were reversed when, on Sunday morning, Cippenham faced the division’s top team Godalming. Despite some close matches, two of which were lost by the narrowest margins in the fifth game, Cippenham slumped to an 8-1 defeat with the only success being Jamie Woodford’s win over Jake Buckley.

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The weekend finished on a high note with Cippenham’s young guns defeating a very experienced Generation 2 team, from Fareham, 6-3. Louis Alexander was judged player of the match for his 3-0 wins over Tim Hampton and Danny Lucking. However, the player that really caught the eye was young Sai Prasanna Kumar. He firstly demolished Lucking 11-5, 11-6, 11-5 and then, in the final encounter of the match, recovered from the loss of match points in the fourth game to defeat the unorthodox and wily Stephen Nelson-Smith over five games. Sai’s brother Bharath had already made the points secure for Cippenham with an impressive 3-0 win over Ross Lingard, who was also beaten by Jamie, but lost heavily to Nelson-Smith earlier in the match.