Brean sands – Combined squad 2009

Brean Sands 2009 was a different challenge for me this year as I was left in charge of 5 Chiltern teams, 2 Kent teams and 2 West Midland teams to make up the Combined Team.....

But boy what a great weekend it turned out to be!

I’ve never been anything other than a win win manager in my life so I approached all the players in my Combined Team with what I wanted from them, that was to be the FIRST combined team to ever win Division 2. After the 1st days play we certainly had a lot of Div 2 shaking in their Boule Boots!! ... I have to say as a "combined" unit I was very proud of all them as they battled away and supported each other all weekend.

I have tried to request confirmation from EPA if the 62 wins the squad achieved is one of the highest results for the combined team but sadly they have not got back to me. However in my eyes it is a brilliant show and effort nevertheless!

In regards to the Chiltern teams involved it has to be mentioned that Max and Sam from our junior team played superb all weekend with their Kent ally Ryan and won the top junior team within the division with 10 wins (although the EPA despite being contacted are showing on their website 9 wins)

Our senior teams also all performed brilliantly and supplied the majority of the wins towards the 62 total meaning that at the end of the weekend finished a very respectable 3rd after fighting the top 2 teams all the way to the wire!

The Brean experience was good for all concerned and again I had privilege of managing all in all another great showing from all our players representing the Region.
 
Well done to all the Combined teams
 
 
Flapper (Combined Team Manager)

Challenge Squad 2009

Firstly a massive well done to the whole squad for a brilliant weekend, as you all know this was my first year as team manager and have to say I mostly enjoyed it! We had a brilliantly team spirit from very early on with everybody watching each others game and giving support.

We had a great start to the weekend with a 3-1 win over the West Midlands. Our next round was then against Kent and sadly lost this round 3-1. This was a very close round with the three games that were lost, losing to 11, 11 and 12. Our next round we again won 3-1 against Eastern. Our following two rounds we drew to Wales and Great Western. We then had a very convincing 4 -0 win over Thames Valley which couldn’t have come for a better time for the squad as some teams seemed to be getting a little frustrated at results not going our way. Sadly this excitement did not carry forward to our last round and we were beaten 3-1 by the East Midlands teams.

We knew on Sunday we would have a ‘bye’ at some point. I asked the control tent if they could tell me when this was, they wouldn’t tell me and as I thought would happen our ‘bye’ was first thing Sunday morning! – Sorry to the squad I did try to find out so you could all have an extra hour in bed!! But instead we all spent the first round supporting the championship squad and the combined teams.

Sunday we had a much better day. We drew our first round against Northern. Our next three rounds we won 3-1 against Southern, Anglia and the Isle of White.

At this point going in to our last round we didn’t know what position we were sitting in and if we could still win, this was due to how slow the EPA were to publish the round by round results on the tent. From what I had picked up I was pretty sure that Kent were too far ahead of us to catch, but I was unsure about second place. As a team manager I couldn’t have asked for a better end to the weekend. We had a great 4 – 0 win over Sussex. Thank you to all players from the championship and the combined squads for coming over to give your support when you had finished playing during this round.

We had all finished and each team had done all they could, but yet we were still unsure if we had done enough to reach second place!

The wait during what seemed like an endless presentation of other trophies seemed to just go on forever. We were then read out as coming runners up, I was and still am proud to say I was apart of the squad. I want to thank each and every one of you for all the effort and hard work you all put in over the weekend.

Live Strong – You were all determined to carry on and keep on fighting despite a rocky start to the weekend. Well done for doing this, it shows a strong team who can keep going and trying despite some early problems. (I think it was all down to the Haribo)

Cobbled together – You all showed a great team sprit from very early on – there was always at least one of you there supporting the others teams when you weren’t playing yourselves.

The Plough – I think once you all settled in to playing, started enjoying it and you thought I wasn’t watching, you all did a great job.

Luton Con Club – What a weekend you guys had, only losing two games. A brilliant performance even when faced with teams that liked to play the game a little, or a lot, slower than most!

Once again thank you and well done team, second place is something we should all be proud of achieving. I really enjoyed the weekend with you all and would happily consider doing this again.

Sharon

INTER REGIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS 2009  – TEAM MANAGERS REPORT

Well another excellent weekend’s competition at Brean Sands has been and gone. Whilst we did not repeat our double success of last year we can be reasonably happy with runners up spots on both the Championship and Challenge competitions with the Championship result in doubt right up to the last round. It was always going to be difficult to repeat last year’s success with everyone gunning for us and I think that, in general, the squad performed admirably.

The team spirit was once again excellent and the envy of other regions and there was some very good performances by many teams.

The Championship squad started off like an express train with two 7-2 wins against East Midlands (last year’s runner up) and Eastern but then we suffered our first defeat with a disappointing 4-5 reverse to Northern who only won another 12 games in their other six matches on Saturday and were eventually relegated. There then followed a tight 4-5 defeat to Kent with two of the games being lost from 10-0 and 8-0 up.

After lunch on Saturday (for those of us who had time!) we beat promoted West Midlands 6-3 before going down to Southern 4-5 (after being 4-0 down). Saturday’s entertainment was completed by a comprehensive 7-2 thrashing of Wales which left us level on wins at the top of the table with Kent.

Sunday morning stated with a 6-3 win against Wales and a 5-4 success over West Midlands where we were 5-1 up and lost three very tight games at the end. At the same time we learned that Kent had won their first two rounds on Sunday 7-2 and 8-1 which left us 4 wins adrift. In round 10 we were defeated once again by Southern 4-5 and at that stage it looked all over for the region. However, at the same time Kent were going down 3-6 to East Midlands and when we did the double over our triway rivals 6-3 in round 11 everything was up for grabs again.

We went into the last round against Kent just one game behind but they proved too strong for us as we lost 3-6 thus giving the trophy to them by 4 games.

Having beaten us twice during the weekend we can have no complaints and we must congratulate them.

A number of teams deserve recognition. Paolo, Pete and Neil surprised everyone (most of all me – sorry for doubting you guys!) by winning 10 out of 12 and were only beaten for top team on points difference. Also, Derek, Martin and James, after an average result on Saturday, won all their matches on Sunday for a 9-3 record. The Juniors started off slowly with two wins and two losses but bounced back strongly after that and finished with an 8-4 record including an excellent fight back against West Midlands on Sunday where they won after being 3-11 and 5-12 down.

The hero of the weekend though must be Phil Winston who overcome much pain due to a damaged knee and hobbled his way all weekend in helping his team win 7 games – well done Phil.

We all felt disappointed on Sunday evening but we can console ourselves with the knowledge that Kent had to pull out all the stops to beat us and they know that we will be back with a vengeance in 2010!

Alan Roden –Team Manager