CHIEFS BACK ON THE WINNING TRAIL
Div 2. Bournville C 3, Colebridge Chiefs 7
A first visit to Bournville’s rather chilly new home produced another fine win for Chiefs. The evening’s proceedings began with five 4 game sets, starting with a mouth watering encounter between individual title contenders Martin George, beaten only once to date, and Sam Henderson. Sam’s excellent return of the George trademark service and a mixture of blocks and counter hits saw him home. Mike Credland then made it 2-0, his skilful blocking nullifying Martin Clayton’s two winged attacks.
With the home team’s no. 3 yet to arrive, Neil Wheatley found himself having to face Martin George, whose aggressive play just kept him ahead for all but one game, but roles were reversed when Sam disposed of Martin Clayton in similar fashion.
With the Bournville third payer, Yaj Ghosh, now ready to play, Neil had the chance to increase Chief’s lead and duly obliged with a steady display of attack and defence, but the next set saw the 4 game sequence broken, when the doubles went to a fifth. Sadly for Chiefs, Sam and Mike lost their way in that game and slumped to their first defeat of the season.
4-2 quickly became 7-2 however, with Mike’s encounter with Yaz producing the evening’s first 3-0 set, including one 19-17 game, Neil keeping Martin Clayton at bay with another 3-1 win and Sam having little trouble in defeating Yaz 3-0.
Mike tried hard to win the extra point, coming from behind to win the first game against George, but he couldn’t match that and the home no. 1 showed why he should still be near the top at the end of the season, by winning the next 3 games with some ease.
Chiefs thus end the first half of the season equal with W M Police in 2nd place, 3 points behind Dinosaurs and 1 ahead of Eagles. With Mike Credland set to miss two matches in January, they might find it hard to stay there