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ELTTL - Week 25 Report

15/3/2020

Week 25 of the Edinburgh League Season saw all 3 of Penicuik Table Tennis Club’s teams in action.

Team 1 were without the services of Colin Green after his late call-off due to illness – worry not, he doesn’t seem to have certain symptoms which would cause him to be kept away from the rest of us – David Melrose and Carsten Giebeler travelled to Bathgate to face struggling West Lothian 2 thinking they were going to start the match 3-0 down. At the last minute super-sub Charlie Brindley made the trip to Bathgate, having played the previous night for Team 2. Perhaps the most thankful players for this last minute substitution should be our friends from North Merchiston 2 who are in a battle with WL they avoid the drop. Charlie took on Dave Fletcher in Match 1 of the night and came back from 2-1 down to brilliantly win 11-4 in the fifth. When Carsten defeated unquestionably the home side’s best player, Lewis Hills in three straight games this looked like being a real struggle for the hosts. David then had a chance to put the visitors 3-0 up as he faced Steve Collins – this went the distance – an 11-9 fifth end win for Steve kept the WL side in the match. Wins for David and Carsten in the second round of fixtures gave the Penicuik side a 4-2 advantage going into the doubles and when that pairing scraped home 11-8 in the fifth they held an unassailable 5-2 lead with the final round of singles matches to play. Wins for Lewis v David and Steve v Charlie (only just) we’re probably not surprising but match 10 of the night was surely a banker – the undefeated Carsten against the winless Dave. TT is a funny old game – a 12-10 in the fifth win for Dave have the hosts an unlikely 5-5 draw and with it a fighting chance (although they are still favourites for the drop) to cause North Merchiston some sleepless nights!

In Division 1, Team 2 of Charlie Brindley, Gary McDougal and Ian Hislop faced a home match against Murrayfield 6, a team who a couple of weeks ago seemed to be in free fall and who had been dragged into the relegation battle. The last couple of weeks have seen the Edinburgh outfit leap out of trouble and they were by far the more relaxed team as they travelled to Ladywood. In young Charlie McGowan, Murrayfield 6 have one of the best players in the division and it seems to go without saying that wi5out him, his team would probably already be relegated. He again proved his worth with an undefeated night in singles play, however, not without a couple of scares along the way – both Charlie B and Ian took him to five ends, Ian just losing out 11-9 in the fifth. A draw was still on the cards though for Team 2 but a five set loss for Ian v Lynn Somerville made that job very difficult. Needing to win the last 3 matches of the night there were good wins for Charlie v Lynn and Ian v Haydn Jackson, but young Charlie delivers the winning point with a straightforward win v Gary. Another 6-4 defeat for Team 2 in a season, where if they do go down, they can look back on SIX 6-4 defeats, not to mention three 5-5 draws which could easily have been wins. There wasn’t really any other good news for Team 2 last week as a couple of other matches saw Edinburgh International pick up a point v Haddington 1 and those pesky students from Herriot Watt picked up a draw against the fellow students of Edinburgh,University, including bizarrely, one of the Edinburgh Uni players conceding, it would appear, the last match of the night when they led 5-4! Controversial?? Who knows?

Team 3 were not in action last week in Division 2 but we need some positives in this report, so let’s report on a surprise 7-3 win for North Merchiston 4 v Murrayfield 7. This was perhaps our Merchiston friends returning our favour of not losing to West Lothian in the Premier division! Murrayfield 7 were the closest challengers to Team 3's promotion efforts, but they are now out of the picture as a result of that defeat. Edinburgh University 3 were mathematically still in with a chance of overtaking Team 3 until their rest v Fife was posted online over the weekend - a win for Fife means that without picking up a bat Team 3 have gained promotion to the 1st Division for next season - well done to them.

Team 4 rounded off the week as they hosted Granton at Ladywood on Wednesday night in Division 2. They called on the service of Craig Linton from Team 5, which was better than Granton could do who only turned up with two players. A 3-0 advantage was never going to be lost and undefeated nights for the Taylor duo, Julian and Sonny saw Team 4 record a much needed 7-3 victory. Although others around them are losing games, they have a tough finish to the season and if they can finish in the top 6 that will be a great achievement.

Our Player of the Week Award is again a tricky one this week. Whilst Sonny and Julian were undefeated they only played against a two-man team. Looking elsewhere, however, only one other player picked up 2 wins – Carsten in the Premier League. He, however, then went on to lose the last match of the night which would have seen a win for Team 1. But this week, the award goes to a player who only had one win – but a hugely important one and he has received huge support form another Club – for making the long journey at less than an hours notice, playing two matches in two days and for contributing to a vital point (not so much for us but for NM2), well done to Charlie Brindley.

Before our controversy of the week, Congratulations to Murrayfield 3 for winning Division 1 at a canter, annoyingly even more impressively than we won the Division last season! Further congratulations to Murrayfield who saw the Premier League title secured this week with their first team’s win over North Merchiston 1. Add to that the fact that Murrayfield 4 look odds on favourites to finish 2nd in Division 1 and this has been a great season for Murrayfield’s top 4 teams (Murrayfield 2 in with a chance of second place in the Premier League). There really is no argument that they have more “top players” than any other Club in the League.

So our controversy of the Week this week suggests we should punish them for that! In the Scottish National League, there is a rule, new to us, that no division can contain more than two teams from the same club. Despite finishing runners up in Division 2, Murrayfield C miss out on promotion because their top two teams are already in the top Division. Should we have something similar in the Edinburgh League. Bigger divisions so let’s suggest no more than three teams in any one of our five Divisions. That would be bad news for Murrayfield 4 but with the greatest of respect to our Edinburgh friends, do any of us actually want to play Murrayfield EIGHT times in the Premier League! Not to mention TWELVE intra-club fixtures. Surely that’s anti-competitive – Murrayfield are the biggest Club in the league and if they have the players to field 4 teams in the top division then they deserve to be able to do so? To suggest otherwise is ridiculous isn’t it? Well not according to National League Rules. And of course this wouldn’t just apply to the top division – it would apply equally across the whole league and would affect Division 4 just as much as the Premier Division. Certainly from our perspective, last year having three teams in Division 4 made the division a little stale, particularly given WL also had three teams. Half of Division 4 was made up of two Clubs.

Now the argument would be a no brainer if we had a high number of different clubs in the League. TT is concentrated at the moment across 12 Clubs in the ELTTL – 11 of them providing all but one of the teams (Granton). Of course it should only be 10 clubs unless someone can tell us which part of the Lothians Fife play in (only joking Fife – we love travelling over the bridge to see you). But for the sake of having a good mix of clubs across the divisions should some thought be given to bringing the national league rule into our League? One for the AGM perhaps.

And finally, we just wish to say that we hope all our TT friends stay well at this crazy time. PTTC are meeting this evening (by telephone so as to keep that social distancing going) to discuss whether we should continue playing the game we love given the unprecedented risks which we are all currently facing. An announcement will be made tomorrow (Monday 16th March).

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ELTTL - Week 24 Report

10/3/2020

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Only a few weeks left in the 2019/20 Season and Week 24 saw three of our five teams in action.

After a run of fairly difficult matches, it got no easier for Team 1 as they took on Edinburgh Sports Club 1 in the Premier Division. Team 1 were back to full strength as Carsten Giebeler returned to join Colin Green and David Melrose. Carsten has missed the last few matches and maybe that lack of match play had an effect on him as he failed to secure a win on the night. Pressure then on David and Colin and they responded well. After Colin won Match 1, David enjoyed a terrific 5 end win v Martin McKay, ending with an 11-0 win in the deciding end! When Colin came back from 2-0 down to defeat Graeme Sutherland, the hosts fancied their chances, 3-3 going into the doubles. A straight sets win for Colin and Carsten gave them a narrow advantage. Match 8 was terrific between David and Graeme. 1-0 down, David recovered well to take a 2-1 advantage before Graeme forced a decider. It was fitting that this match went all the way – in the end, David was unlucky to finish on the wrong side of an 11-9 fifth end. 4-4 and when Carsten lost his last match of the night, it was left to Colin to round off an excellent night for him as he beat former teammate, Martin to secure the draw.

Team 4 of Julian Taylor, Tony Brentnall and Sonny Taylor travelled to take on Edinburgh University in Division 2. The students can be a real handful (just ask Team 3) and so it proved last Friday. Not many of us enjoy playing at St Leonards Land – dodgy lighting, some dodgy tables, balls appearing from everywhere when there is another match on, heavy conditions and add to that the horrible mirrors that surround you when playing – seemingly Tony nearly did us all a favour as his bat slipped rather ferociously from his hand and nearly took out the mirrors of doom! Despite being 2-0 up courtesy of wins for Julian and Sonny, the visitors didn’t trouble the scorers again until match 10 when Sonny recorded his second win of the night – a 7-3 defeat for Team 4 who have now slipped from third to seventh in a matter of a few weeks!

Finally, Team 5 hosted North Merchiston 5 in Division 3. North Merchiston are still in with a shout of promotion and they proved too good for George Wilson, Kristian Skotzen and Craig Linton. George probably deserved to pick up more than he did – he lost his opening match 15-13 in the decider before losing his second match by an 11-9 in the fifth scoreline. He picked up a good win in the final round of singles matches but that was the only win for the hosts as they went down to a 9-1 defeat for the fourth time this season.

There can really only be one candidate for our Player of the Week award this week – Colin had an excellent night against one of the top teams in the Premier League and his undefeated night secured a point for Team 1 – Well done to him.

And so to our Controversy of the Week – player behaviour!

Three separate examples this week – in Team 1’s match v ESC there was some fairly foul language used by a couple of our opponents (one in particular). In the Hall at the time was certainly one young lad (playing in a different match) and whilst he may well have heard bad language at school and on tv etc, he really should not have to be subjected to that at an ELTTL Match. Worse, however, was the complaint we received after the match from the Centre Manager who had to try and appease a family (a couple of young girls and their father) who had been playing Badminton in the other half of the hall. The father was quite rightly disgusted by some of the vulgar shouts coming from the TT match. He had come for a nice evening with his daughters and clearly had not anticipated having to put up with obscenities being shouted from the other half of the hall. Does the umpire have any powers in this type of scenario? When it is your own team member umpiring, the chances are that nothing will be said. The League of course have the power in terms of the Rules to do something:

“Disciplinary action will be taken by the ELTTL Committee against any club and / or individual found guilty of unsporting conduct, including playing under a false name or using foul language to, or in the hearing of, opponents, umpires, or others present at the fixture.”

That, of course, doesn’t result in making any difference to the conduct of the fixture in question or to the upset caused – strong umpiring needed but how many of us are actually strong enough to cause an issue at the time rather than moaning about it afterwards??

Second issue is one of our own unfortunately. In our match at Edinburgh University, one of our players has four 11-0 scores recorded against him – the player left the venue before completing his final match and that’s not good for either the opponents or his own team. We apologise to our opponents for the fact that the match was not fulfilled. Frustration can get to all of us it appears!

And finally regarding conduct, what started as a fairly jovial league wide email regarding “elbow bumping” rather than hand shaking due to the Corona Virus situation, got very out of hand after an ESC Member hit “reply all” with a comment that appears to have been intended as a joke. Not many people took it as a joke, most considering that at the very least the comment was in very bad taste. Is this a matter for ELTTL Committee to take up as some would suggest? Can an Amateur Sporting Association get involved in such matters? In fairness, the individual to whom the comment was directed does not appear to have taken too much offence at what was said and there has been an apology given by the “culprit”. Just goes to show, however, that one needs to be very careful with the written word – if the foul mouthed ESC player from our Team 1 match had put the words he used in writing, the League Membership would likely all be very offended!

And finally, as a follow up to last week’s controversy, or as we called it the “non-event” of a controversy regarding Murrayfield 5 v 6, we received via our Website the following comment (which is somewhat redacted):

“Team VI were the better team on the night and that is why they won. On the issue of a player’s rating increasing throughout the season, and the proposal to sanction a club for a player becoming ‘better’ - well, that is just ridiculous. You want to penalise a club for supporting and facilitating the improvement of a player who in this case aims to be the best he can be, and has trained and worked really hard throughout the season to do that?”

We would like to point out that, as we stated in our Report last week, we fully accept that Murrayfield 6 won because they were the better team on the night – we highlighted that the first half had seen a 5-5 draw and as we alluded to young Charlie McGowan is so rapidly improving that it’s unfair to all us older players!! We even commented that the only “controversial” thing about the match was Murrayfield themselves referring to their Team 5 as being understrength. Additionally, we agreed with the position that trying to monitor someone’s rating as it improved over a season and “punish” them / the Club as a consequence would be going too far – in summary we agreed with all of the points made in response to our Report – the good news for us is that we now have proof that someone other than Rachel & Kristian from our Team 5 actually reads our Weekly reports – good to know!

Until next week…

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ELTTL - Week 23 Report

4/3/2020

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We really are now at the business end of the season and there were some further twists in Week 23 of the League Season.

The tightest battle, certainly in terms of relegation, is in Division 1, and following Team 2’s disastrous loss to Corstorphine last week their Division 1 status is going to be decided by matches in the next couple of weeks. Their Week 23 encounter with runaway League leaders Murrayfield 3 was not a “targeted” match for their survival and so it proved. In singles play only 2 of the nine matches played went more than 3 ends, 4 end losses for both Charlie Brindley and Gary McDougal. A good doubles victory, however, for Charlie and Ian Hislop meant that Team 2 avoided a whitewash. With other results not going their way, Team 2 are in significant difficulty – more on that later.

After Team 3’s win v Haddington in Week 23, Iain Johnstone Krzysztof Laszkiewicz and James Wighton made a visit to the Gyle to take on Murrayfield 8. When Anna Porsche and Ben Jamieson won matches 3 and 4 on the night the tie was level at 2-2. Two good wins for the visitors relieved some pressure before James and Krys played out a mammoth 5 setter in the doubles. After an 11-4 third end win gave the Penicuik duo a 2-1 advantage, they looked in control, but the Murrayfield pairing won the final two ends 12-10, 11-9 to cut the deficit to 4-3 and when that was followed by a win for Ben in Match 8 suddenly the match was level at 4-4. Fortunately for the visitors the last two matches both went their way and a 6-4 victory was secured – 3 wins for Iain, 2 for Krys and 1 for James as they maintained second position in the Division 2 table.

Team 4 have had a tough few weeks in Division 2 and that continued as they faced Murrayfield 7 at Ladywood last Wednesday. 2-0 down in the blink of an eye before Team Captain Julian Taylor won a close fifth end decider against Richard Lo to get the hosts on the board. Wins in matches 4 and 5 for the visitors, however, put them firmly in the driving seat before Julian once again went the distance, this time against Masoud Nowbaveh, winning 11-8 in the fifth to keep the match alive. When he then combined with Taylor jnr for a 5 end doubles victory, Team 4 were in with a chance of getting something out of the match. Tony Brentnall couldn’t get anything from match 8 and Julian’s great run of five end victories came to an end as he lost match 9, 12-10 in the fifth, and with that the visitors had secured the win. Sonny won the last match of the night as the hosts fell to an unfortunate 6-4 defeat.

Finally, Team 5 paid a visit to the wonderfully named St Leonards Land as they took on Edinburgh University 4 in Division 3. The students look likely to pick up the second promotion place from the division and in Brian Ng and Louie Tsz Lun Wong they must have two of the most attacking and best players in the Division. The Girl Power combination of Rachel Petrie, Hannah McDonell and Older McDonell took on the students. Matches were played on two tables and Hannah was nearly finished match 3 before Greig had completed a mammoth battle with Brian in match 1 (Rachel having lost match 2). Young McDonell did her part as McDonell senior struggled with the all-out attacking skills of the student – what division is this?? A 5-end victory for Greig before he then took on Louie – an even better attacker it seems!! – A 5 end victory there as well. With matches 5 and 6 both going the way of the students, the tie was level at 3-3. According to the students they were pushed for time (unlikely) so asked to play a further singles match before the doubles. That was the crucial match of the evening between Rachel and the University’s number 3, Alex. Although Rachel won the second end, Alex won in 4 and with that it appeared that the chances of a point for the visitors were gone as the all-out attacking force of the students were pitted against Rachel and Hannah in the doubles. We can’t quite describe the looks of angst and fear on the student’s faces as Rachel and Hannah somehow got themselves into a 2-1 lead and 10-9 up in the 4th. A match point to, probably, secure the most unlikely point of the season! Ah it wasn’t to be – a 12-10 win in the fourth was followed by a comfortable fifth end win and when Brian won the last match of the night v Rachel a 6-4 win for the students was secured.

Only Iain and Greig were undefeated this week and we know the reasons why they can’t win our Player of the Week Award. Although in a losing team, this man did everything he could to keep Team 4’s match alive – 2 excellent 5 end wins together with a terrific 5 end doubles victory – well done to Julian.

And so to our Controversy of the Week section. Not the Heriot Watt scenario again is it? Only sort of! As we mentioned earlier, Division 1 sees an absolute dogfight taking place to avoid relegation. As far as we can see any two teams from 6 might fall out of the Division come April. There might even be an argument that Corstorphine 1 aren’t safe 7th from bottom! One of the teams in danger are Murrayfield 6 – they, however, have managed to pick up 4 points in their last two matches to move them out of immediate trouble. Last week they picked up a 7-3 victory against fellow club-mates Murrayfield 5. Now as far as we can see there’s not really anything controversial about that – the youngsters of Team 6 are capable of beating virtually anyone in the division on their day – the only reason we mention this fixture is because Murrayfield’s own reporting of this match on their Twitter page states:

“Team VI beat an understrength team V in tonight's derby match at the church hall.”

To an outsider looking in, does that suggest that Team 6 got a bit of an easier ride from their Clubmates than might otherwise have been the case? Had a different combination of players for Team 5 played who knows whether it would have made any difference? Our friends from Haddington took umbrage last year when our Team 5 went on a run with the help of players playing up from Teams 6 and 7 to try and ensure promotion from Division 4. Is it appropriate to put Club before Team?? We remember making the argument to our East Lothian friends that their last match of the season in Division 4 saw promotion contenders Haddington 4 take on their own Team 5 who had nothing to play for. Would it ever be conceivable that a Club would allow another of their teams ruin the chances of a team in that position – now we are not saying that the “outsiders” in such a scenario should deliberately throw the match or anything of that sort but taking the Haddington match as an example, lo and behold, Team 5’s highest ranked player at the time, Captain Martin Hayman, didn’t play. Did that make it easier for the team pushing for promotion to secure the victory – it must have done. Maybe it was just a coincidence that their best player couldn’t make that match? Is there anything wrong with choosing to field a weaker side, if anyone did that? That’s when things can perhaps become controversial…..

Now in fairness to Murrayfield, and before we get anyone from there thinking we’re trying to slur their reputation, we don’t actually see that the Derby match was anything other than a fair fight – we think the only controversial thing is Murrayfield themselves referring to their Team 5 as being “understrength” – 3 of the four players registered from the beginning of the season for Team 5 played – and in the first half of the season the score was 5-5 so this was always going to be a close match. Enough about that non-event. If Murrayfield 6 were to beat Murrayfield 3 in the last match of the season needing a win to survive – that would be a different story!!

What about players playing at a lower level than their rating score suggests – Iain Johnstone for example. We raised earlier in the season that Iain is not allowed to play doubles because his rating, at the beginning of the season, was more than 100 points greater than players in the team above. Young Charlie in Murrayfield 6 is an example of someone who is improving at an amazing rate. He is well ahead of all his teammates and more than 100 points better than all of Murrayfield 5 – indeed he is significantly higher rated than all of Murrayfield 4 and ahead of 50% of Team 3! Should we monitor ratings to that extent and when a player becomes clearly “better” than others in teams above then sanction that Club, as has happened with others at the start of the season? We think that would be taking things too far but the principle / rationale behind the rule is the same – if we are going to place significant weight on ratings and apply sanctions based on those ratings, then why shouldn’t the same rule be applied throughout the season??

And to end, the Edinburgh University Students were left with a comment by one member of our Team 5 last Friday that seems to have amused his teammates – what on earth are you guys doing playing at this level he said, pointing out that they were far too good to be playing Division 3 – the nerve of the man……

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ELTTL - Week 25 Report

ELTTL - Week 24 Report

ELTTL - Week 23 Report

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