Sides can be pulled apart in exciting derby

The Lasers got off to a difficult start with the usually consistent Arthur Duncan getting a lesson in table tennis from Swots no 1 Nick Shepherd.

Nick powered his way to a fairly comfortable 3-0 win.

Roman the Polish magician was on next, and he reversed the Swots start with a quick demolition of the Swots reserve player John Carlton 3-0.

Nat Forno has been in and out of the squad all season but his improving averages were very evident when he controlled the tight match against Dave Beveridge eventually winning 3-1.

Arthur was keen to make ammends for the first match and faced John who gave him a hard match, with Arthur just winning all his three games 11-9.

It was Nat’s turn to face the in form Nick and and Nat found him too good on the night going down 3-0. Roman then had tricky match against Dave who was keen to get on the score sheet. Roman had to use all his guile to see Dave off, winning 3-1. The doubles were about to start and Lasers were is a strong position being 4-2 up.

Arthur and Roman faced Dave and Nick and the former stuggled to find their usual fluent form losing 3-0.

Nat faced John and although John won one of the games he could not prevent Nat improving his averages with the Lasers player coming out on top 3-1.

The Lasers had now at least secured a draw with two matches left so the emphasis was on trying to get the final point on the board to win the fixture.

Arthur had never lost to Dave before in the leagues so was confident of another win.

Dave had other ideas however, and rallied to play his very best table tennis finally beating Arthur 3-1.

This left Roman against Nick in the final match and after four games they could not be separated. It went down to a final game which went to and fro before Nick just edged ahead to win 11-9 in a very exciting match.

The fixture ended 5-5.