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On a warm & balmy evening the Mersey Men's 3rd Team travelled away to Cheadle to face the unknown strength of their Men's 4th team.
Our crack pairing of Dave Lennie & Andy Kent played first couple with the ever reliable pair of Neil Staddon & Anthony Jones playing second. Our 3rd pair was Chris Hynes & Jerry Fynn, who so far this season, despite some memorable performances, had failed to register a set won. The first round saw a very able Cheadle first couple take both sets from our 1st pair, despite a spirited performance which saw our lads score 4 games in each set. The Cheadle seconds, a pair of wily old foxes, played a solid baseline game and our 2nd pair only managed to take a game in each set, to go down 6/1, 6/1. The evening started well for the, thus far unsuccessful, 3rd pair, who won a convincing first set 6/3 against an athletic and able Cheadle couple, before sadly losing the second set by the same margin. In the second round drizzle had started to fall but despite this our 1st couple comfortably won the first set against the wily old foxes of the Cheadle 2nd pair before narrowly losing the second set on a tie-break. Our 2nd pairing won both sets 6/4 against the Cheadle 3rds and our 3rd pair were comprehensively beaten by the Cheadle 1sts, losing both sets to love despite a spirited performance and taking most games to deuce. By the third round the weather had begun to deteriorate significantly and both teams were soaked in the deluge that fell from the rapidly darkening sky. Cheadle offered to finish the match there and then, an invitation we declined. Our 3rd pair now faced the Cheadle seconds and rapidly won the first game and continued to peg against the opposition game for game through the torrential downpour before, ultimately, losing the set 6/4 in a closely contested final game that almost saw the set go to a tie break. The Cheadle pair, now convinced that there was to be no easy outcome from the final set, called time and rapidly left the rain soaked courts. Our second pair faced the extremely strong Cheadle 1st couple and unfortunately came away 2 sets down despite a well fought contest in the appalling weather conditions. Our 1st pair comfortably took the first set against the Cheadle 3rds 6/2 before the sheer volume of water falling from the sky forced Andy Kent to play without glasses. Despite being virtually blind our lads still managed to be 5/3 up in the dying minutes of the match. An inspirational last ditch performance by the Cheadle couple, making the most of Andy's rain induced incapacity, forced our lads to a tie break and the match timed out before our pair could seal their win. The final scoreline of 11 sets to 5 for Cheadle didn't truly reflect the excellent performance of the Mersey Men in these extremely challenging conditions and all credit must go to the entire team for playing on in conditions that lesser teams would have refused to endure. The next fixture sees Dave Lennie step up to the plate as Captain and take his team away to play the highly regarded Macclesfield 4th team, on Sunday 31st May at 10:30. We wish them all the best and look forward to another creditable performance from the team. |
