The South East Regional squad conquered all before them at the BPA's Inter-Regional Championships that were held at Brean Sands over the weekend of 4th-5th September.
The main squad retained the Championship for a record third year running. It was the 11th time in the competitions 21 year history and the sixth time in the 8 years that the competition has been held at Brean that we have won the event. Our juniors made it a clean sweep of National Junior titles as they easily won the Junior Championship to add to the National Triples and Doubles titles they already hold. The challenge squad made it a clean sweep for the South East as they won the Pontins Challenge Shield for the second time in three years.The wins were all the more impressive in that all three competitions were won before our teams went into their last round matches. The juniors sewed-up their event even sooner with two rounds to spare.
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Final Positions: |
Wins |
Pts
Diff |
Our first string of Luke Fribbens, Kris Smith, Greg Davenport and Jennifer Cooter performed exceptionally well all weekend winning 11 of their 12 matches to easily run out winners three games ahead of nearest rivals Chiltern.
The win made it a clean sweep of National titles this year for our youngsters. The same quartet was crowned National Junior Triples champions in April and Luke and Greg added the National Junior Doubles title in July.
CHALLENGE TROPHY:The South East won their first nine rounds of the competition with either 3-1 or 4-0 victories over the other Regions to seal their victory by the Sunday lunch time. An excellent performance by three of the four teams in particular gave them a winning margin of 5 games with an incredible points difference of +201, 130 points better than their nearest rivals the Isle of Wight.
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Final Positions: |
Wins |
Pts
Diff |
Top performers. South East teams finished first, second and third of the 44 teams taking part. Martyn Fribbens, Nigel Mansell and Jean-Louis Guiot were the top team. They were undefeated with 10 wins out of 10. They were ably supported by Dave Hurren, Richard Spillett & Matt Horrigan and Mick Lucioni, Jeff Mitchell & Martin Eggleton - both teams only losing one game each.
As defending Inter Regional Champions the South East once again had management and the lion's share of the teams in the BPA Combined squad. A good start saw them leading division 2 after 4 rounds. Sadly their challenge fell away over the weekend but they finished in a very creditable fourth place just 6 games off promotion and 30 games ahead of bottom side Cornwall.
Their achievement can be put in perspective when you consider that the teams placed 13th-16th in the South East were up against top 8 teams from the other Regions.
Our second string juniors (Alex Bruce, Philip Jarrett and Robert Cooter) were one of the youngest sides at the competition but they acquitted themselves well winning 7 of their 12 games, finishing as third best team in the Combined Squad.
Top performers were team 3, Mick Lawrence, Mark Thorne, Hugh Aldred and Richard King, in the BPA Combined squad were fourth best team overall in division 2 with 10 wins out of 12.
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Final Positions 1st Northern 2nd Wales 3rd London 4th Combined 5th Anglia 6th Great Western 7th Devon 8th Cornwall |
Wins 68 67 62 61 60 42 41 31 |
Pts
Diff +221 +211 +154 +123 +37 -158 -235 -353 |
| Combined 4 L. to R. D Ashby, F Ashby, S Ashby | Combined 2 L. to R. P Killick, N Hurren, A Pucknell |
Pictured above - Some of The South East players in the Combined Squad.
HOW THE TEAMS FARED:
| DIVISION 1 (Played 12 games) Manager: C.Cooter & G.Johnston | |||
|
Team |
Members |
Games Won | Pts Diff |
| South East 1 | D.Chalkly, M.Hourcastagnou, G. Jarrett |
8 |
+14 |
| South East 2 | T.Gordon, D. Turner, R.Jones, T,Turner |
6 |
-10 |
| South East 3 | G. Saguato, D. Lavelle, K. Spillet |
5 |
-16 |
| South East 4 | N. Baxter, D. Baxter, M. Shrimpton |
7 |
+27 |
| South East 5 | B.Bove, L.Maxey, S. Borsi |
8 |
+36 |
| South East 6 | P.Murray, D.Murray, L.Belcher, M Baker |
12 |
+82 |
| South East 7 | D Woodman, A.Williams, T.Glenn, |
8 |
+33 |
| South East 8 | S.Golder, C.Shrimpton, R.Harvey, B. Wing |
7 |
+7 |
| South East Juniors | L.Fribbens, K.Smith, J.Cooter, G. Davenport |
11 |
+53 |
| CHALLENGE TROPHY (Played 10 games) Manager: K. Wood | |||
|
Team |
Members |
Games Won | Pts Diff |
| South East 1 | D.Hurren, R.Spillett, M.Horrigan |
9 |
+92 |
| South East 2 | M.Lucioni, M. Eggleton, R.Willison |
9 |
+75 |
| South East 3 | M.Cooter, K.Atkinson, S.Powell |
2 |
-36 |
| South East 4 | M. Fribbens, J-L. Guiot, N. Mansell |
10 |
+70 |
| DIVISION 2 (Played 12 games) Manager: J. Middleton & D Blakely | |||
|
Team |
Members |
Games Won | Pts Diff |
| Eastern 1 |
R. Griffiths, C. Hunt, J. Treagus, M. Ward |
4 |
-34 |
| South East 2 | N.Hurren, A.Pucknell, P.Killick |
6 |
-13 |
| South East 3 | H.Aldred, R. King, M.Lawrence, M.Thorne |
10 |
+63 |
| South East 4 | F.Ashby, D.Ashby, S.Ashby, S.Brown |
7 |
+14 |
| Chiltern 5 |
L. Gardiner, K. Spratley, G. McLaren |
7 |
+17 |
| Eastern 6 |
M. Walkley, M. Flintoff, I. Groves, J. Sellar |
8 |
+34 |
| Chiltern 7 |
N. Stevenson, P. Wright, G. Burr, M. Burr |
6 |
+20 |
| South East 8 | J. Davenport, R. George, C. Street |
6 |
-7 |
| South East Juniors | R.Cooter, A.Bruce, P. Jarrett |
7 |
+29 |
The sea air at Brean Sands obviously suits the South East Region. Since the event moved there eight years ago we have recorded six victories and two second places in division 1. Our juniors have recorded five victories and two second places in division 1 while we have also won the division 2 junior title (in 2001) and the challenge trophy (2002 and 2004). That's 14 titles in 7 years! Not a bad record.
