The Final of the Roly Sewell Handicap Final took place at North Dean Village Hall last week between Premier Division Winners Den and Flackwell Heath A who finished 7th in the same division. This is a handicap tournament so one team is given a head start in overall points to level the playing field. Flackwell certainly would need a good start and it was felt that 87 points was slightly generous to the Premier Champions.

Den have dominated the higher echelons of local table tennis since the premier division was created in 1988/89. They have only lost it three times in 1990/91 92/93 and 97/98 and are currently on their longest winning streak of 7 consecutive titles. In 91/92 they also became the first and only team to achieve the double of Premier and Roly Sewell titles.

This season has been no different. They have been unbeaten all season having drawn once against second placed Allied Worldwide and have only dropped 15 games all season. All 6 of their players are in the top ten of the divisional individual ranking list with Steve Buck holding top spot with 26 from 27 games.

Flackwell on the other hand have had a tough season, finding themselves in the bottom two for the first half of the season they managed to string together some good performances and results to finish 7th and ensure survival.

Mathematically Flackwell needed to score nine points per leg and they would win the match by 7 points overall. Realistically however they would have to hope to win some of the legs during the night. Paul Savage of Flackwell started against John Cooper who found himself 4-2 down in the first leg but rallied with 7 points in a row and finished up 22-6 winner to give first blood to Den. Savage then took the next two legs 11-9 11-9 until Cooper evened the legs up with 11-7 in the fourth. Next up saw Den Captain Nick Hansell take on Paul Hopgood. Hopgood recorded an excellent quarter final victory over Hansell in the Men’s singles this year so was looking for a good result. He took the first game 11-9 but Hansell got back into it, using amongst other things, some excellent straight arm forehand looping, to take the next two. Hopgood then took the last leg 11-9 again. At this point Flackwell were bang on target taking 72 points from two games but with eight games left there was still a long way to go. The next game saw Nick’s son Chris Hansell take on Flackwells Allen Jones. Chris started well and Jones always struggled with Hansell’s short backhand pimples. The gap had been closed at the end of the game to 60 points with Hansell taking it 44-25. Hopgood then struggled against Cooper and started to miss a few too many opportunities to go down 42 -33. Next up Chris Hansell dominated Savage with a premium display of tight table tennis conceding an average of just 5 points a leg, coming through 11-4 11-4 11-8 11-3. SO at the halfway stage Den had reduced Flackwell’s lead form 8-7 points to just 27. In the doubles Jones and Hopgood had the daunting task of taking on this years Men’s Doubles Champions Chris Hansell and John Cooper. Unsurprisingly the match went with form with the Den pairing proving far too strong for Flackwell, winning 11-10 11-4 11-5 11-3 to close the gap to just 5 points. Nick Hansell now had the task of trying to overtake Flackwell against Allen Jones and the Den Captain’s excellent defensive play coupled with some very rare attacking shots saw him put Den 22 points ahead effectively securing the win and title. Hopgood would now need a strong performance against the younger of the Hansell clan. It wasn’t to be as again Hansell shone in a game he won 44-25.

Flackwell needed a miracle in the next two but it wasn’t to be. Cooper beat Jones 44-23 in the ninth match leaving the two captains, N Hansell and Savage to battle it out in the tenth. Savage came out fighting displaying some beautiful hitting through Hansell’s defence and taking the first 11-7 but lost his way in the second to go down 11-2. Hansell took the last two 11-9 11-5 to give Den a convincing 426 to 351 victory and their second ever league and cup double.