Full team: Scott Whitbread, Josh Poullet, Alasdair Owers-Bradley, Luke Smith, Phillip Peters, Joshua Bexon, Chris Wood, Aaron Banasik
Captain: Simon Ashmore, assisted by Calum Chivers
After falling a little bit short last year to make it into division 1, this year was looking good, with us just having the edge in ratings in the run up to the weekend. Looking ahead to the three days of play, the first day could be the most important as we have Yorkshire.
Nottingham v Yorkshire Nottingham won 5 – 4
Best moments of the day… Phillip Peters winning from a set and 4 match points down in the second set at 5 – 2, then winning easy in the third set. Scott Whitbread being down 3 – 2 in the third set tiebreak, then doing 2 double faults to go 5 – 2 down, and then winning the last 5 points to win.
5 – 4 was a great win and play was from 9.30am till 7.15pm - the longest day I have ever been involved in.
Nottingham v Hampshire and IOW Nottingham won 8 – 1
We knew we needed to win by a big margin to have a good chance on the last day. This was because we had the massive problem, in that it was Scott’s 18th birthday and he would not be with us for the last day. So, we spent a lot of the day cheering on Yorkshire to make sure they beat Sussex; they went 4 – 2 down in singles matches, but won all 3 doubles to win 5 – 4. This was still a problem as we looked like losing on the last day due to our number one being away.
Nottingham v Sussex Nottingham won 5 – 4
The day started with us in a somber mood but even stranger was the downpour of snow that meant we had to walk to the centre.
The day started with Josh Bexon looking very settled after winning the day before, and after taking the first set he ran away today’s match. After this it all fell apart for Sussex: their number 4 and 1 players had bad injuries and couldn’t play the singles (and therefore also the doubles), so this meant we had won the day 5 – 1.
This was a unbelievable chain of events but had meant we have made it for the first time into division one!
A fantastic achievement for the team.