Oldham net trophy glory

TROPHY TIME: Oldham’s victorious veterans’ team of Phil Myers (left), Dave Buckley and Ian Quinn.

Table Tennis:

OLDHAM men’s veterans’ team scooped silverware success at the Lancashire and Cheshire cup finals at the Hilton Table Tennis Club.

Three sides, representing Oldham and District Table Tennis League, took part in the competition.

The veterans of Dave Buckley, Phil Myers and Ian Quinn claimed the Dennis Smith Trophy by defeating Halton 5-4 in a thriller.

With the score locked at 4-4, Buckley entered the final match against the highly-ranked Halton number one, and he produced a magnificent display to seal victory.

Unfortunately the men’s team, comprising Darryl Meredith, Tristan Swann and Ian McLean, lost by the same scoreline in the Norman Cook Trophy final, despite having several chances to clinch the match.

Swann was unbeaten on the night and McLean won one but Meredith, despite playing great table tennis in patches, could not quite clinch the final set.

The women’s team of Karen Hill, Doreen Schofield and Paige Allman, deputising for the injured Mandy Winskill, were also beaten 5-4 in the Mabel Neary Trophy final, against Halton Ladies.

Schofield was Oldham’s star of the show, winning all three of her matches, with Hill claiming the other.

Allman, aged 14, stepped up from the fourth division of the Oldham and District League to the highest level of competition in the North-West and showed a great deal of potential.