College Stars

On a wet and windy Tuesday night, the stand-in roving reporter found herself viewing the Second Division match between College and Westhome B. After the usual greeting from John Bromley – “Have you brought some toffees?” – play got under way. Both opening games were very competitive and closely fought. In the ladies match, Carol Yates and Anna O’Grady covered the court extremely well and made good use of the drop shot. Their Westholme opponents, Jenny Brookfield and Sarah Avent, rose to the challenge and played some lovely badminton, resulting in the first match being split. The opening mens tie was equally exciting: James Aldred and Paul Ainscoe enjoying some long and thrilling rallies against against Mas Hasware and Josh Lee.The College pairing of James and Paul eventually came out on top, and Paul’s loud and clear scoring left the spectators in no doubt.

The next set of level doubles both went to College. Anna teamed up with the very useful French left-hander, Cecile Planque, against Sarah Avent and Wendy Matthews. Both pairings played well, but Anna and Cecile proved to be too strong for the opposition. From the spectators bench, John Bromley was heard to mutter ” She swears in French, you know”. In the second mens, Paul teamed up with Will Pang against Maz Hasware and John Skinner from Westholme. There was good play all round, but excellent court coverage and some great smash shots from Paul and Will saw them win both games.

In the mixed games, College were dominant: lovely net play from the ladies, coupled with accurate smashes from the men, secured them a comprehensive e and well-designed win, with only the Westholme pairing of Jenny and Josh managing to win any games.

Special mention should be given to Paul’s beautiful bright green T-shirt, which earned him the nickname The Green Lantern. And a final word to Josh Lee, who was using a ladies hairband to tame his tresses -” Get your hair cut!”