West Lothian Table Tennis Club on form

Nov 3 2011 by Kieran Westbrook, West Lothian Courier

THE highlight of an excellent week for West Lothian Table Tennis Club was the meeting of their two teams in Division Two of the Edinburgh and Lothians League.

In a highly charged atmosphere, the match was played more like a local derby rather than a friendly.

In a feisty contest, the more fancied D Team registered a 6-4 victory against their E Team pretenders.

Playing for the winning team was their regular trio of Drew McLaren, Ian Wodecki and George Anderson who have all been in fine form of late.

By contrast, the eventual losers had a pool of five to choose from and went with a team of Sam Stanton, John Swift and Martin Rumsay, each with a point to make.

McLaren and Wodecki both won two each while Anderson chipped in with one.

However, it was the ever-improving Stanton who was the night's star turn with his powerful hitting on both wings as he won all three of his singles games, added to by Swift winning one.

The final match was the doubles, with the result on a knife edge at 5-4.

So it was that the settled duo of McLaren and Wodecki found themselves in opposition to Stanton and Rumsay with one point the goal for both partnerships.

In the final analysis it was the greater experience and consistency of McLaren and Wodecki that won the day and both points. Expect the E Team to lick their wounds and come back fighting in the reverse fixture because a reversal of fortune is not beyond the realms of possibility.

Meantime, the D Team is in touching distance of the top of the table while the E Team sit mid table. But next week's fixtures against Corstorphine and Edinburgh University respectively should allow them both to move further up the table.

In the Premier Division the A Team recorded their second successive 6-4 win, this time against Edinburgh Sports Club.

With George Flanagan yet again unavailable because of an injury sustained at work, he was replaced by Dariusz Szymczak for his first outing of the season and he did not disappoint. Joining him were Brian Hunter and Lewis Hills.

As the scoreline would suggest, this was a very tight match with exactly half of the games going the distance and, fortunately for West Lothian, no fewer than four of these going in their favour.

Hunter and Szymczak won two each and Hills took one.

Hills was unlucky not to add to this total but lost one at 15-13 in the fifth set. However, he also combined with Hunter to take the doubles, again in five sets.

At this early stage of the season the omens are good for a successful season and they currently sit mid table.

However, their next fixture pits them against one of the title favourites where even one point might well be beyond them.

Both teams in Division One were also victorious.

The B Team took on Edinburgh International and also won by 6-4 with a team comprising the veterans John McCulloch and Barrie Hills together with the junior Kieran Boyle.

McCulloch and Hills won all of their singles games but contrived to lose the doubles for the first time this season.

The selectors were probably unfair on Boyle by expecting him to compete having just got off a plane.

The C Team broke this run of tight matches with a very one-sided 9-1 thrashing of Murrayfield.

Of a team of Andy MacDougall, Kevin Milne and Keith MacKay only MacKay dropped a game.

These results see the B Team as one of only two teams with a 100 per cent record while the C Team sits not too far behind.

To put the icing on the cake, the F Team travelled to the Blue Liners with a team comprising two players making their debuts and another playing at this level for the first time in three years. And they inflicted an 8-2 defeat on their hosts.

Making their debuts were the husband and wife duo of Iain and Liz Henry (both Linlithgow), and St Margaret's pupil Daniel MacKay (son of Keith) was the welcome returnee.

Husband Iain, in particular, posted a strong claim for a regular place by completing his first match undefeated both in singles and doubles where he combined with wife Liz. Daniel and Liz shared the other four wins between them.

This team now sits in second spot, a position they hope to cement in next week's fixture against Edinburgh University.

Of the six teams representing the club in this league, no fewer than five were successful last week and the other only lost out to another competing in the same division.