Week 9 started with Team 1 granting a postponement to Murrayfield in the Premier Division leaving Teams 2, 3 and 4 to take centre stage.  
 
The week started poorly as Team 3 travelled to take on Division 2 league leaders West Lothian at Bathgate. As we have mentioned before about Team 3, their team spirit is great and it seems that they sometimes enjoy the car journey more than the actual TT – James Wighton, Hannah McDonell and Abby Wighton again combined against Keith McKay, Jamie Toner and Wojciech Wziatek – Hannah made the very confident statement en route to the match that it would be good if the team avoided a 10-0 whitewash – 9-1 would be OK for her – not exactly confidence building! Maybe Dad Greig should get her to select this week’s lottery numbers – her prediction was spot on unfortunately! James was the only winner on the night with a victory over Keith and he also went to deuce in the fifth against young Jamie. The girls played well in patches, but their consistency was lacking, although Abby did what no other player has apparently done thus far this season and took an end off the impressive Wojciech – Hannah should also have had an end against him – 9-5 up before he came back courtesy of some excellent serving. NPC Greig thinks he needs to reintroduce his Jaffa Cake treats for any wins – that seems to have worked in the past!
 
On Wednesday 17th November both Team 2 and Team 4 hosted Haddington opposition. Sonny Taylor, Charlie Brindley and Julian Taylor knew they were in for a tough match against Division 1 League leaders Haddington 1, led by Peter Lugton – back to playing regular league table tennis after an absence of…………. – goodness knows how many years. Irrespective of how many years it’s been, Pete hasn’t lost his skills and he strolled through his matches although did lose an end to Sonny. Haddington must be favourites to make it to the Premier League this time around (they’ve been so close in the past) – they now of course also have the premier experience of Carsten to call on – how did he end up at Haddington????? Hmm – let’s move on. Not wanting to rub our noses in it too much, Carsten stayed away! Russel Frith was also undefeated and Matt Munro (he was a good singer wasn’t he) lost out to Sonny and Charlie. An 8-2 win for Haddington as they march on undefeated.
 
In the other half of the hall, Team 4 of Craig Linton, Rachel Petrie and Jim Jack took on Haddington 3. After some positives from Week 8’s defeat at Fife, the Penicuik trio knew this would be a tough match, their opponents sitting pretty towards the top of Division 3 and so it proved. Two of the ten matches went the distance to be decided in fifth ends – the doubles pairing of Jim & Craig just losing out 11-7 in the fifth whilst the last match of the night saw Craig lose 11-8 in the fifth. A fairly one-sided contest as Team 4 suffered a 10-0 defeat – Division 3 is tough!
 
And so, to our player of the week award. Not much to choose from really this week! Across our 3 teams in action 3 players recorded 1 win each! Hmmm? Not really any standout performances by opposing players either – West Lothian’s Wojciech Wziatek deserves a mention – but there’s no way he should be playing in Division 2 – at the Vets tournament on Sunday past he defeated Dariusz from the Premier Division! Speaking of the Vets, we look there for our player of the week – he wasn’t in action for his Club Team, but in the Over 50’s last Sunday, after his toughest win of the day against Club President Greig got him into the top 4, he went on to claim top spot – well done to Colin Green – a great win to secure his place in the top few Over 50s in Scotland.
 
And finally, our controversy of the week section. 9 weeks in and we’re struggling this week for any controversy! Surely not? We’re too nice it appears – no dust ups, no internal issues (well not this week anyway), no refusal of postponements etc etc. So, this week we have to look at the Club’s nicest player and captain (apparently), James Wighton. He likes a bit of controversy does James! And he could not stop talking on the way back from West Lothian last week about the “ridiculous” player of the match awards that are given out each week! In our match against West Lothian, James got the only win of the night for Penicuik and also went to 5 sets in his other match – Abby & Hannah managed two ends between them! Picture James’ face when the scorecard was presented to him, and he saw that our West Lothian opponents had given player of the match to Abby!! Despite the girls chuckling away, he didn’t find it remotely amusing! Oh well – James isn’t a vindictive type though – both Jamie and Wojciech were undefeated on the night and also combined to win the doubles – one of them would get our award wouldn’t they?? Congratulations to Keith McKay for being the only player to lose for WL! He was very pleasant though and if this is a popularity contest then James liked him the best!! Oh dear!
 
Maybe the Edinburgh League should follow the Scottish National League when it comes to player of the match awards – they don’t let the teams decide – the computer decides on the basis of matches won, ends for and against and point difference if necessary! No such popularity contest there! Anyway, never mind James – despite that evil streak that you’ve hidden well up to now, you’re still at the top of our “nicest captains” league – mind you the bar isn’t a very high one – being ahead of Colin and Charlie is probably not a great achievement! And Craig for Team 4 is right on your heels – but he’s a hibee so you’re still safe!
 
Week 10 here we come…….

Week 8 has already come and gone – it was a quiet one for the club with Teams 2 and 4 both in action on Wednesday 10th November.  
 
Team 4 made the journey to Inverkeithing to take on Fife. Club President Greig had indicated at training last weekend that this was a very winnable match for the team and so it proved to be. Match 1 saw Rachel Petrie come back from 2-0 down to force a fifth – unfortunately she couldn’t complete the comeback as the hosts recorded the first win of the night. Craig Linton quickly levelled the scores with a 3-0 win and when Rachel won the next match played things looked good for the visitors. Oh hang on – although Rachel did indeed play match 3 on the night unfortunately Team 4 could only field two players! A 3-0 deficit before a ball was hit and when Craig lost his second match played the contest was effectively over. Extremely unfortunate circumstances led to only Rachel and Craig playing and even more unfortunate given it was their best result of the season – Craig won his last match as the Penicuik duo fell to a 7-3 defeat. Could one of the team’s other 3 registered players have won 2? Very possibly. An unfortunate loss but much to build on for next week.
 
Meanwhile Team 2 visited new league premises as they took on Murrayfield 5 at Ocean Terminal. And by all accounts the premises were great according to the Penicuik trio. Whilst we managed to get three players to Ocean Terminal, this 5-player squad needed to call on help from James Wighton from Team 3 as he joined forces with Gary McDougal and Sonny Taylor. James was first up and was unlucky to lose from a 2-1 advantage as he went down in a deciding end. When Gary then lost to young Haydn Jackson it looked bad for the visitors. Game 3 was to prove crucial as Sonny turned round a 2-1 deficit to win the decider 14-12. James continued to get his money’s worth as he then lost in five to Haydn before wins for Sonny and Gary then levelled the score at 3-3 going into the doubles. Gary and Sonny were never really at the races as they lost 3-0. Sonny was then involved in another fantastic comeback. 2-0 down to Haydn he won the next three ends 11-8, 11-8, 11-7 – according to Gary this was a brilliant high-quality match with Sonny showing what he’s capable of. James lost match 9 which gave Murrayfield a 5-4 lead before the last match of the night saw Gary take on Daniel Najdrowski. Gary will be the first to admit that he has struggled so far this season to find his best form and there wasn’t much confidence on the sidelines when Gary lost the 3rd end 11-4 to fall 2-1 behind. He forced a decider with an 11-8 win in the fourth before a crazy finish saw five deuces in the deciding end before the deadlock could be broken – a 16-14 win for Gary rescued a point for Team 2 – what a finish!
 
And so, to our player of the week award. Gary secured a point with that amazing last gasp win but there can really be only one winner this week. A fantastic undefeated night in singles against higher rated players was the reason Team 2 secured a point – his rating increased by a staggering 147 points in one night – well done to Sonny.
 
And finally, our controversy of the week section. Which part of Edinburgh and Lothians is Inverkeithing in? No, sorry, that’s not our controversy – we love our trips to Fife! We take a look at our own failures again this week – Teams 2 and 4 have between them 10 players registered. At the beginning of the season there was a little bit of a grumble from Team 2 members that five was too many in the team. Week 8 and we manage to field 4 out of 10 regular players! Now the circumstances surrounding team 4 were nothing to do with lack of organisation, but for team 2, in a vital match for them given their predicament towards the foot of the table, it does seem bizarre that we were not able to field a full side. With no disrespect to James, who was a handy replacement, you have to think that if one of the regulars had played a win would have been within the side’s grasp. With only two players should a postponement be sought? There are plenty of “free weeks” in the schedule this season given the contraction of the divisions. Not that many games have been played so far for the club but already three of our four teams (Teams 1, 2 and 4) have played understrength or with only two players. We have always been clear in our view that postponements cause more trouble than they’re worth and that’s one of the reasons why this season each of our four teams have more than 3 players registered. In those circumstances, if a team still can’t field three players, surely the first option should be to seek a postponement, just as our nicest team captain, James, did in relation to Team 3s match last week. Now of course we’re not saying that a postponement would necessarily be agreed to by our opponents – but at least ask the question – and if a request is refused then it will give us something else to write about in this section!
 
On we go to Week 9 which started with Team 1 acceding to a last-minute request from Murrayfield for a postponement – so if any of our teams can’t field a full side against our Murrayfield friends in future, bear in mind they’re due us a favour!

Week 7 of the 2021/22 season saw all four of our teams in action in a busy week for the Club.
 
First up on Wednesday night was Team 1 with an away match in Fife. After our internal troubles, as reported last week, Team 1 had to call upon the services of Charlie Brindley from Team 2 to join forces with Colin Green and David Melrose. Fife Team Captain Peter Aird must have one of the most difficult jobs in the League – he has 8 players to pick from for his side! Oh, how we would love to have that problem! Surely some of them would prefer to play for Penicuik for a guaranteed place each week wouldn’t they?? The match result may not have changed had matches 2 and 3 on the night gone the other way but looking for some positives to take from the evening both David and Colin had their opportunities to give the visitors an early advantage after Charlie lost the first match of the night. Both players lost out 11-9 in deciding fifth ends to Tales Yamamoto and Peter Aird respectively. When the next 3 matches also went the way of the home side, the match was over. Colin managed to salvage a crumb of comfort in Match 8 with a 5-end victory over Tales but with no other wins on the night Team 1 fell to a heavy 9-1 defeat.
 
Thursday night then saw Teams 2 and 4 both in action at Ladywood. Team 2 faced Edinburgh University in a Division 1 encounter which they would have targeted as a potential win. Charlie Brindley (fresh from some match practice the previous night) was joined by Julian Taylor and Gary McDougal. Before the match there was some controversy with Edinburgh Uni seeking clearance for one of their players, who was ineligible to play up, to be allowed to play up – more on that later. On the night, all three home players picked up victories against the “playing-up” player (good job!) and Charlie and Julian picked up a 5-set win in the doubles. That meant 4 matches were in the bag for the Penicuik trio – just one win needed against the two remaining University players. That should have been achievable but on a very disappointing night none of the Penicuik trio could pick up that elusive 5th win as they fell to a 6-4 defeat – a worrying night for Team 2.
 
In the other half of the hall, Team 4 (Craig Linton, Jim Jack & Rachel Petrie) were in action in Division 3 against Corstorphine 2. It was noted by Team 4 prior to the match that Corstorphine had thrashed ESC 10-0 last month and ESC had hammered Team 4 10-0 in their last outing – fair to say then that the Penicuik trio went into this match with a little trepidation. Although on paper the 9-1 defeat which followed would seem to give little confidence to Team 4, there were some real positives to take from the match. Five of the ten matches went to 4 ends – Craig won one of those. In four of the other losses, therefore, the team showed that they could compete at this level – 12 ends played on the night and lost by the home side were only lost by 2 or 3 points. The difficulty which Team 4 seem to be encountering is finding consistency in their match play – once they can do that wins will surely follow.
 
The final match of the week saw Team 3 travel to face Edinburgh University 4. The Uni 4 team had defeated Uni 3 earlier in the season and Uni 3 had defeated James Wighton, Hannah McDonell & Abby Wighton by a 6-4 scoreline a few weeks ago so the visitors knew they were in for a tough match. James started the match off against Jakub Kara’s long and short pimples – what on earth is a young student doing playing with that combination!! It had the desired effect as James fell in five ends. The girls then gave the visitors the advantage as they both won their opening matches and when James won his next match they led 3-1. Dodgy Bat player then took on a very confused Hannah and cut the deficit to 3-2 before Abby restored the advantage with her 2nd victory of the night to give Penicuik a 4-2 advantage going into the doubles. Team 3 hadn’t won a doubles match up to this point and all three different combinations had been tried – it was back to girl power this week and that paid off as Hannah and Abby combined for an excellent 3-0 win to secure a point for the visitors. Hannah then secured the win with her second victory of the night before James laboured a little to a 3-2 win in match 9. Jakub finished off his unbeaten night with a win over Abby but the visitors left delighted with a 7-3 victory, all 3 players picking up 2 singles wins each.
 
And so, to our player of the week award. There’s not much to choose from this week – all three of Team 3 picked up 2 out of three wins and Abby and Hannah also won the doubles – they can’t be split though, so we are, for the second time this season, going to give the award to an away player. One opponent, in particular, was extremely impressive – a young man who has been on the radar for some time but seemed to up his game to a different level last week – he strolled through Wednesday night’s match against our top team and won all 12 ends which he played – three singles and the doubles. The manner of his victories was impressive and it’s fair to say that even though Colin pushed him close in a couple of ends, his wins never looked in doubt – well done to Andrew Nimmo from Fife – its only an extra hour over the bridge to us Andrew if you’re interested!!!
 
And finally, our controversy of the week section. We are still waiting to hear about our appeal against Edinburgh University 1 v Penicuik 1 (reported earlier in the season) but with that in mind it was somewhat bizarre that the League once again authorised an ineligible player to play last week against Team 2 for the University. For whatever reason the player in question was on the “can’t play up list” and as such 3 conditions require to be met. The third of those, as per the League Match Secretary’s email to all Clubs, is:
 
“I as Match Secretary have explicitly determined (and informed their Club’s Secretary) that they are in the correct team, or, if not, into which team they should be placed. If they remain in what seems to be the wrong team then playing-up restrictions, to themselves or others, may apply.”
 
The University sought clearance for a player who had played two matches for them – he had won 4 out of 6 games – 1 of his losses was against another University player (no idea whether he has been assessed yet as being in the correct team) – his other loss was against a Murrayfield player who himself has only played in two matches, seems to be new to the league and has won all 6 games he has played.
 
Now the fact that the player in question is playing in Division 4 and won no games against Team 2 is irrelevant – the point is that the League seem able on some occasions to just ignore their own protocols and that cannot be right – whilst we accept that it is only a guide that players should play at least 4 matches to enable an informed decision to be made, the Match Secretary clearly had not deemed that the 2 matches played by this player was enough because he had not made any determination before being contacted by Edinburgh Uni – it seems to us that he was “pressured” in to making a decision before he would ordinarily have done so. We all like the fact that there has to be flexibility and it’s great to have an ability to get decisions made quickly but when these decisions seem to only be made for some clubs and are not based on the general guidance ordinarily used, it is easy to see how some could start feeling a sense of “unfairness”.
 
We are of course extremely thankful that the player in question didn’t win any matches – although he nearly did, going to five ends against Gary! Can you imagine the tone of this controversy had that happened and had that proven decisive in the match!! So, no harm done – unlike Team 1’s match against University earlier in the season – we await a decision on that with bated breath……
​

the Week 6 of the 2021/22 season was a quiet one for the club with only two of our four teams in action.
 
The week started with Team 3’s trip on Monday evening to the Gyle to take on Murrayfield in Division 2. James & Abby Wighton were joined again by Hannah McDonell as they looked to bounce back from their 6-4 defeat to Edinburgh University in their last outing. The Murrayfield side fielded Lynn Somerville, Graham Muir and Anna Porsche.
 
The tone of the match was set by the first two matches – James v Graham and Hannah v Lynn. Are there two more awkward players in the Division? Neither James nor Hannah could really get to grips with the “dodgy” anti-spin of Graham or the long pimples of Lynn and although both probably deserved a bit better the away pairing both fell to straight sets defeats. Match 3 saw Abby take a 2-0 lead against Anna. She, however dug in, and nearly pulled off a terrific recovery falling 13-11 in the fifth to an extremely relieved Abby.
 
Whilst Hannah had been a bit confused by Lynn’s long pimples, her head was then utterly scrambled by Graham’s anti-spin. Abby looked as if she was working out Lynn in the first end of their match but fell 16-14 and from there was never in it. Two further 3-0 victories for the home side and at 4-1 down James knew he needed to win against Anna. It wasn’t to be as he fell to a 3-1 defeat. When Abby and James (the 3rd doubles combination in the same amount of weeks) fell 3-0 to Graham and Lynn, the points were secured by the home side. They rammed home their advantage in the last 3 matches, the highlight (or maybe lowlight) being James somehow losing a -2-0 advantage to Lynn. James seemed to find his form again in the decider and at 7-2 up the night looked like it would end well, but from there he lost 9 of the next 10 points as Lynn won 11-8 in the fifth to complete a miserable night for Team 3.
 
Wednesday evening saw Team 1 travel to face West Lothian 1 in the Premier division. Iain Johnston was again called upon to join David Melrose and Colin Green. This match was tight all the way. In the first round of singles Colin was the only winner for the visitors but the match was levelled up after the second round of fixtures with wins for Colin and David. 3-3 going into the doubles. As is regularly the case, the doubles is a crucial match. David and Colin took on Darius and Brian Hunter and at 2-1 up they had two match points that they couldn’t convert. The home pair sneaked the 4th end 14-12 and that gave them the confidence to take the decider 11-7.
 
At 4-3 down going into the final round of singles the Penicuik trio were a little dejected and they knew it would be tough for them to secure a win. When Brian then defeated David in match 8 by a 3-1 scoreline, the task of even securing a draw looked very difficult. Match 9 saw Iain take on Steve Collins and when Iain won the first end 11-1, the visitors confidence was boosted. After that horrendous end, however, Steve steadied the ship to win the next two ends 11-9, 12-10. To his credit Iain then dug deep to take a tight fourth end 12-10 before completing his recovery with an 11-6 win in the decider.  That left the two team captains to play the final match of the night – Darius v Colin. In a nervy encounter Colin took the first two ends but then Darius kept in the match with a 12-10 win in the third. The fourth end also went to deuce, but this time Colin held his nerve for a 13-11 win as he secured a good point for the visitors.
 
And so, to our player of the week award. It’s an obvious one this week. An undefeated night in singles play which secured a vital point for the team merits the award going to Colin – well done to him.
 
And finally, our controversy of the week section. We mentioned last week that we could have aired some of our own internal issues but chose not to in the hope that matters might have settled a little - they’ve settled but not in the way we would have hoped! Foul serving has featured regularly over the years, and we were given a reminder about rules and regulations this past week by the League’s email regarding the requirement for each club to have a “qualified” (in the loosest sense of the word) umpire. Two of our players were involved in their own “foul serving” debacle away from the ELTTL at a recent competition. A foul serve was called on the player as he delivered a “dodgy serve” to an opponent. At the time this didn’t seem to particularly have a huge impact – there was no shouting and moaning and the player who was foul served went on to win the match. However, after the event, feelings have run very high. The issue? Putting aside whether the serve was unlawful or not, how many of us would call a fault on our own teammates? A warning – absolutely – but to award the point to the opponent? Now obviously the starting point here is the rules – and the rule states that if the umpire is clear that a serve is unlawful then the point is awarded against the server. Just ask our friend Roger Thomas from Haddington – Rachel is still recovering from having a point awarded against her out of the blue when he helpfully stepped in to umpire a Division 4 match a couple of seasons ago!
 
Obviously if we are playing the sport fairly and are umpiring in a neutral manner, there should be no distinction made by an umpire between his own teammates, fellow club members, friends or players from other clubs. Otherwise, the Umpire leaves him or herself wide open to criticisms of unfairness and bias. In truth, however, how many of us can actually say that we would foul serve a player? How many of us would foul serve a teammate? We imagine that most of us would probably let “dodgy serves” go on both sides and very few of us would actually award a point against any player, teammate or not. We may give warnings (which in terms of the rules should only be given once if the umpire is unclear about the legality of a serve). We may take the view that no advantage is being gained by the server (completely irrelevant in terms of the rules) or indeed we may just take the view that we’re going to stay quiet because this is the Edinburgh league and the vast majority of us are not official umpires! Is that fair? The idea, we assume, behind the League trying to get more “umpiring knowledge” into clubs is so that, irrespective of the standard that we are playing at, the rules can be applied more consistently throughout the league. One of the problems with having some players who have been deemed to have passed an umpiring course, is that they might umpire to a very different standard than the rest of us. It’s inevitable, in our view, that when a player umpiring another player calls a foul serve, feelings are going to run high. Why are you calling me but not Mr X or Mrs Y – their serves are just as bad. It becomes personal. It becomes emotive. Arguments are then made that there is bias against the player in question. And let’s face it, probably most players in the ELTTL have at least one serve that doesn’t comply with the rules – certainly at Penicuik there are numerous examples – and maybe the moral of this story should be that we spend more time in our own clubs getting the message through to everyone that we have to serve in compliance with the rules.
 
We were hoping to end this week’s report on a jovial note, as we always try to do, but on this occasion there’s not much we can say to lighten the mood! The difficulty in this case is that the issue arose between League teammates. We are fairly sure that if any of us were playing with an official umpire taking on the duty of umpiring then we would simply accept a call made by them for a foul serve. We might not like it or agree with it, but we would just accept it and move on. And of course, whilst we accept that it should not make any difference, when that call is made by another player (and more challenging still a teammate) matters become far more complicated.
 
The outcome of this episode – a complete breakdown of the relationship between the players resulting in the “offended” player leaving the club. How terribly sad for all concerned.