Gary Major Crowned Club Champion 2025!

The King is Dead ….. Long Live the King!!

This weekend saw a new Club Champion crowned! The competitions started on Friday evening to get us our Cup and Plate finalists. We kicked off the afternoon with the Intermediate Cup final between Neil Fisher and Sam Norman. After Sam quickly took a 2-0 lead, Neil got stuck in and levelled things up with two tie breakers to make it 2-2, but when Sam took a sizable lead in the fifth it was too much for Neil to come back, and Sam ran out a 3-2 winner to take the Intermediate Cup. Well done Sam .

The Plate Competition for the Intermediate tournament was played between Clive Heap and Keith Mitchell, with Keith having too much for Clive and winning it 3-0.

That was followed by the Ladies Club Championship. A big thank you to the ladies coach Pauline Nicholson for running the Ladies Competition on the previous Ladies Night (first Sunday of every month ), and coming up with two finalists for us. This year it was Sophie Moore vs Gillian Steel. After the first game ran quite close, the nerves of playing in front of a crowd got the better of Sophie and Gillian took full advantage to win the match 2-0 and retain her cup for the third year in a row. Next year Sophie…..

Then came the main event – the 2025 Club Championships. After some tight matches in the quarters and semis it came down to Gary Major vs Russell Lillibridge. After Gary blew Russell away in the first game, crowd favourite Russ faught back in the second, and after having game ball, sadly lost it on a tie breaker. The third was no less impressive with plenty of fast paced rallies and some awesome retrievals. Gary once again took the game which meant for the first time, champion is Gary Major! A huge congratulations to him .

The final match up of the evening was for the club championship plate between Nathan Turner vs James Corrigan, two up and coming stars of the club who played a cracker of a match. Nathan played some very tight shots and nice lengths, with James managing to get to just about everything to keep the rallies going made which for a good spectacle. In the end Nathan took it 3-1, but watch out for these two featuring in future championships….

At the end of the season we always hand out a ‘Team Player of the Year’ award. This year Nathan Turner was awarded the prize. This award isn’t just for the player with the best results or the player who shows up the most, but for the player who, over the course of the season, shows improvement and grows as a player, and Nathan surly did this. So we’ll done once again to him.

And that is it for another year, a huge thanks to everyone who entered and for the help of all people who marked and kept things running smoothly over both nights. Watch out next year Gary as ex club champ Liam will be back and he’ll be wanting his title back !!