It was with great trepidation, anticipation and excitement that the Over 45 team of Olga Bryant, Sharon Chandler, Lucy Matthews, Kevin Barron, Peter Coleman, John Foo, Nick Pratt and Captain Sandra Ashcroft (who had the onus task of trying to keep them all in line) headed off to Lilleshall for the annual Master games. They were in Group 1A containing Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Shropshire, Warwickshire and Wiltshire and would play one match against each other county consisting of 1 Ladies, 1 Mens and 2 Mixed doubles.
Out first match was against Leicestershire and following a long journey of some 3 hours it was always going to be tough, a very nervous debutant Lucy Matthews played in the ladies with Sandra Ashcroft it didn’t take them long to work out their partnership and narrowly lost 21-15 21-17, but this hopefully meant positive things for the weekend, next it was the turn of Peter Coleman and Kevin Barron who won 21-14 21-17,
Score 1 all going into the Mixed Cambridgeshire strength normally Olga Bryant paired up with her partner of old Nick Pratt at number 1 mixed and cruised at 21-7 21-13 followed by Sharon Chandler and John Foo who closed the match out in favour of Cambridgeshire 21-16 21-16.
Match score 3-1.
With a sit out of 3 hours this gave the team time to talk tactics and team selection HA HA!! or grab 40 winks. Team spirit was high going into the next match against Shropshire
- Ladies Doubles - Lucy and Sandra lost 15-21 15-21
- Mens Doubles - Nick and John won 21-8 21-14
- Mixed 1 Doubles - Olga and Peter won 21-9 21-9
- Mixed 2 Doubles - Sharon and Kevin won 21-17 21-4
Match Score 3-1
Final Match of Saturday with much relieve of the team was against their old enemies Nottinghamshire
- Ladies Doubles - Lucy and Sandra lost 15-21 13-21
- Mens Doubles - Peter and John won 21-14 21-19
- Mixed 1 Doubles - Olga and Nick lost 17-21 13-21
- Mixed 2 Doubles - Sharon and Kevin won 21-17 17-21 and 21-13
Match Score 2-2
Undefeated Day one, time to party and hopefully for Captain Sandra to prevent too bigger hangovers for a
10 O`Clock start on Sunday. Hic Hic
Sunday
First match of the day was going to be against Warwickshire who had partied hard the night before, with Cambridgeshire hangovers prevented and muscles kept warm dancing the team were positive and up for the challenge
- Ladies Doubles - Lucy and Sandra lost 8-21 11-21
- Mens Doubles - Nick and John lost 19-21 18-21
- Mixed 1 Doubles - Olga and Peter won 21-10 21-17
- Mixed 2 Doubles - Sharon and Kevin won 21-12 21-14
Match Score 2-2
Second match against so far an undefeated team of Wiltshire and an unknown commodity for Cambridgeshire
- Ladies Doubles - Lucy and Sandra lost 13-21 12-21
This was followed by a outstanding performance and the match of the tournament by John and Nick
- Mens Doubles - Nick and John won 18-12 21-19 and 21-13
This left it to the Mixed pairings to bring the result home, unfortunately this did not start well with Peter rubbing deep heat where beers cannot reach, giving the Cambs Over 50s ladies looking down from the balcony a sight not fit for sore eyes and playing against an injured opponent proved too much hence
- Mixed 1 Doubles - Olga and Peter lost 18-21 21-10 and 16-21
Match score 2-2
But the pairing with 100% records to this date kept Cambridgeshire in the race
Mixed 2 Doubles - Sharon and Kevin won 21-17 21-15
With one match to go Cambridgeshire remained undefeated with both Sharon and Kevin on 100%, so the pressure was on, so following a team talk it was decided to swap pairings around against Derbyshire
- Ladies Doubles - Olga and Sandra won 21-10 21-12
- Mens Doubles - Peter and John won 21-6 19-21 and 21-19
- Mixed 1 Doubles - Sharon and Nick won 21-14 14-21 and 21-12
- Mixed 2 Doubles - Lucy and Kevin won 21-16 21-11
Match score 4-0
Final positions
- Warwickshire: 10 points
- Nottinghamshire: 10 points
- Cambridgeshire: 9 points
- Wiltshire: 7 points
Followed by Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Shropshire
It was a great weekend of quality badminton, team undefeated with a tremendous team spirit commented on by the organiser and here`s looking forward to 2016.
Many thanks team
