The 2012 season was a great year for Durham & Cleveland's Vets teams.
Below are reports from the various team captains on how their fixtures went.
MEN 35’s
The Durham and Cleveland men's team travelled to Eastbourne with some new but old faces this year. We had brought in two youngsters to the squad, being Phil Fowler and Ben O'Connor.
The squad was:
Martin Hodgkinson
Graeme Foreman
Phil Fowler
Ben O'Connor
Charlie Daniels
Day One- Sussex
On day one we were playing the host county Sussex. We hadn't played Sussex in recent years so we had a chance to make some new friends. We brought in the youngsters for the singles matches; Ben played number two singles and secured a great win for the start of the weekend with a comfortable straight sets win. Durham and Cleveland: 1-0.
Phil played number one singles and won in a very tight match after losing a long first set tiebreak. In ever increasing temperatures Phil battled back and won his match in a third set tiebreak. Durham and Cleveland: 2-0
Martin and Graeme played the first doubles and with the rubber at one set all and just about to win the match, when the rain started and the rest of the days tennis was abandoned.
Day one result was Durham and Cleveland won 2-0.
Day Two- Somerset
No play on day two as the rain continued all day. The result from day two was that Phil won the table tennis competition beating all that dared step up.
Day Three- Nottinghamshire
Day three was delayed and started at twelve o'clock when the courts were passed fit for play. Ben came on first in the number two singles and in very windy conditions played a hard fought match and had no luck losing in the third set tiebreak. Notts: 1-0.
Phil played the number one singles and played some great tennis but very difficult in the conditions as was also edged out in a third set tiebreak.
After two hard to take third set loses Martin and Graeme played the first doubles and fought to a third set win to give the boys a chance winning promotion in this shoot out against Nottinghamshire. Notts: 2-1.
Martin and Graeme then played against their two singles players and were narrowly beaten in two tiebreak sets. Notts: 3-1.
At the end of a tough weekend waiting around, it reminded me of junior tournaments many years ago. The boys all got together and we realised how close we were to gaining promotion and will be ready for next time. Well done boys.
Captain - Martin Hodgkinson
LADIES 35’s
Another fantastic trip to Eastbourne 3 – 5th August, this time with 2 new faces, Tracy Spears and Jayne Speight and 2 old faithfuls Janice Brewis and Anne Clayton. The 4 of us battled over one and half days, as heavy rain abandoned play Fri and even though the sun came out the courts were too wet so play didn’t start again until 1pm Saturday. However the sun then shone and all but 1 match was completed. With the Olympics in full flow the rain delay didn’t spoil our weekend and we joined the Eastbourne crowd in the local park to watch the excitement.
All in all it was a successful team performance and we narrowly missed out on promotion, losing 3-2 to the eventually champions of group 5b. We finished runners up to Berkshire.
Results: Beat North Wales 5-0
Beat Cheshire 4-1
Lost to Berkshire 3-2
Captain - Anne Clayton
Ladies 40’s
Having held our position the previous year we again played in Division 2.
Our results were:
Hereford and Worcestershire: won 3-2
Northumberland: won 4-1
Cheshire: won 4-1
Nottinghamshire: lost 2-3
As usual the matches were very close and also very enjoyable. We managed to finish 2nd in the group which has led to promotion to Division 1 for the 2013 season. This should provide us with some very interesting challenges as well as opponents from the south who aren’t very sure who or where Durham and Cleveland is!
The county was represented well this year by Tracy Spears, Jayne Speight, Janice Brewis, Trish Jeffrey, Christine Heppell, Anne Clayton and Jill Carroll. All players contributed brilliantly to the overall team performance with the ‘never say die’ attitude being prevalent throughout. The players are fully committed to the team and always play for the team and each other – it is a pleasure to be their captain.
Captain - Jill Carroll
Ladies 50’s
The ladies vets team over 50's had a good season, finishing 2nd in Group 3A and being promoted to 2A for the 2013 season.
5 matches were played 4 were won and 1 lost on a championship tie break.
The teams were drawn from Jill Easton, Imogen Hirst, Emily Andrew, Sheila Stephenson, Pam Robinson and Anne Waldin.
Cumbria won all games
West of Scotland won by 4 rubbers
Northumberland lost by 1 tie break set
Staffordshire won by 4 rubbers
Bedfordshire won 4 rubbers
The matches were all played in good spirit and were greatly enjoyed.
Captain - Anne Waldin
Mens 45’s
We were in a group of 5, but Scotland withdrew so we went down to 4. One of our opponents then cried off the night before and gave us the match. We firstly played Cumbria at home and won 5-0.
Then our much re arranged promotion trip to Staffs had to be called off at the last minute when 2 of our four players injured themselves and three stalwarts were already sunning it up somewhere in the world.
So all in all we have only played one game, hope to do better in 2013!
Captain – Phil Atess
Mens 55’s
Having won promotion to Division 2 in 2011, we approached the 2012 pre-season with optimism and confidence as well as a few pre-season training sessions – unheard of before at least so far as the men are concerned! Whether it paid dividends or not is a matter for debate but I am pleased to report that we did manage to escape relegation – just! We triumphed against Norfolk and defeated East of Scotland by default. However we suffered narrow defeats to Sussex, Leicestershire and Lincolnshire all by slim 3-2 margins. All in all, we survived and will do battle again in 2013 in Division 2.
If our results were not the strongest in the league our enthusiasm and team spirit was certainly second to none! Thanks to Alan Jones (captain), Colin Jeffries, Richard Prisk, Mike Victory, Mike Egglestone and Geoff Snowdon. Fred Greenwell was also a member of the squad. Personally it was a pleasure to lead ‘the lads’ as they all know how to enjoy themselves as well as how to compete.
Thanks to the County for its support. Looking forward to a successful campaign next season with hopefully an injection of youth into the new campaign.
Captain - Alan Jones