Bicester A Team (reported by Peter Williamson)
This season we started with some difficulty as early in the season we lost our star player, Jeff, to
injury. Luckily, however, we gained a competent new player, Lewis, who performed valiantly in his
first season in division 1, gaining an average win rate of around 60%.
Along with my own win rate of 66%, this secured a 4th place finish for Bicester team A.
Alongside these two solid performances, both CQ and Dan made steady gains over their previous
season’s performances and we look forward to next season, where I’m sure they’ll both continue to
improve.
Player of the season: Peter Williamson (with a new personal best of 66% win rate and finishing inside the
top ten best players of the division for the first time).
Bicester B Team (reported by Matt Boddington)
Second year in Oxford Division Two. Played 16 matches – 3 wins, 1 draw and 12 losses (with a point gained from 5 of those
losses). Enough to avoid relegation, finishing 6th out of 9 teams.
Matches Played: Matt 15, CH 11, John 7, Graham 6, Poh 5, Marco 2
Player of the season: John Sykes. (He was extremely helpful with
the transition to a new captain, always available even though he was going through a house
move and was part of the deciding doubles game which helped us win 6-4 to ensure we
secured our place in the second division. He will be sorely missed!)
Bicester C Team (reported by Adrian Portlock)
We finished 7th in Div 3 out of 8 teams only 2 points away from 6th.
We played 14 matches winning 2, drawing 2 and losing 10.
Tom Brennan was our star player, again, playing 9, winning 6, for an average of 67%.
Wendy Chapple put in a solid performance, as usual, playing 36, winning 15, for an average of
42%.
Paul Bannister put in an equally solid performance, playing 27, winning 10, for an average of 37%.
I played 21, winning 6, for an average of 29%.
Malcolm Rigg played 30 with no wins. But on the positive side he had some close matches and his
standard is visibly improving.
In the AHHS we had a bye in the first round and lost to Ral A away in the second round narrowly
433-401.
And as a general point I would like to thank the team for there dedication and reliability making my
job as captain very smooth.
Bicester D Team (reported by Terry Goddard/Tim Walker)
Bicester ‘D’ again proved to be the strongest team in the league – holding all the other teams up!
The Team comprised Angela Harriott , Feng Qu, Will Brown, Byron Gill & Myself.
This was the 2nd season in the league for Angela, Will & Byron & the first introduction to the
league for Feng.
Once again I operated the team on a rotational basis giving each player the opportunity to play the
same number of games.
All of last years players improved their points per match average across the board & Angela
achieved her first match win! We finished up with 2 draws & 7 points – 6 more than last year.
I was particularly pleased to see the improvement in the performance of Byron & Feng as the
season progressed. From winning no matches in his first season Byron achieved a 29% success rate
this season. Feng achieved a 33% success rate first time out. Well done Feng & Byron!
Our most notable achievement was as Runners Up in the Handicap Shield Competition overcoming
some strong Division One teams in the process.
On a personal note, after 12 years of having had the enjoyment & the privilege of Captaincy I feel
the time is now right to step aside & in this respect I am pleased to be able to hand over the
Captaincy of the ‘D’ team to the capable hands of Tim Walker.
I look forward to playing under & supporting Tim next season & wish him every success in his new
role.
Player of the season: Feng Qu.
Finally, on behalf of the ‘D’ Team I would like to express our appreciation of the Club members who
invested a great deal of their time behind the scenes in facilitating the move of the Clubs base from
Chesterton to Graven Hill School.
SBCL Team (reported by Dan Shaw)
The 25/26 season marked a significant milestone for the club: our first entry into the Senior
British Clubs League. Competing at national level was always going to be a step up from local
league table tennis, and the squad approached the campaign with enthusiasm and commitment.
As a new team to the competition, we were placed in the National C division based at Highfield
TTC. We played our SBCL fixtures across four weekends throughout the season.
Whilst Bicester finished 8th out of the 8 teams in this division, I am pleased to report that it has
not deterred team members from agreeing to form a squad again for the upcoming season.
It is fair to say that we found the standard very tough. However, we had a few results where we
were not too far off the mark at all – including a handful of 6–3 losses that featured Bicester being
on the wrong side of fifth-setters. It was a great experience, and I believe our players have all
learned a lot from playing in this competition this season.
We recruited a couple of players from other clubs to form our core squad of Matt Boddington,
Chris Jones, Marco Parra, Greg Swan and myself. Throughout the season, we also fielded
substitutes in Chui-Que Wong and Lewis Sumner.
As captain, I’d like to thank all players for their commitment to the team, every player gave time,
travel and effort over long weekends. The spirit in the team remained good throughout, even
when results were hard to come by.
As I touched on earlier, Bicester have entered an SBCL squad for the upcoming 26/27 season.
I’m pleased to report that Chui-Que has agreed to become a member of our core squad going
into next year, joined by Byron Gill.
This first season in the SBCL has given several players in our club experience that they would
not otherwise have had. Whilst it was a hard season on paper, I believe that it was a worthwhile
one for the club, and I hope we can build on it.
CBCL Team (reported by Chui-Ha Wong on behalf of Jana Semotanova)
We entered our first-ever team in the Cadet British Club League at Guildford TTC this last
season. The team consisted of Alistair, Daniel, Wesley and Wai-Sun and they started round 1
in division 3. Unfortunately, being short a player in the opening round essentially led to an
automatic demotion. Despite this setback, the players fought incredibly hard, played with
great determination to win both sets and games. I’m happy to report that every player
managed to win at least one match over the course of the 4 days, making it a highly
rewarding and positive experience for everyone involved. A huge thank-you on behalf of the
team goes out to all the supporting parents, to Mike who generously gave up his time to
provide expert coaching advice and finally to Toby for organising the entry of the team into
the CBCL.
The same players will enter the Junior British Club League next season as Alistair will be
overage for the Cadet British Club League.