Secretary’s Shield Semi-Final

Bath have been knocked out in the semi-final of the Secretary’s Shield by a team from Sheffield who were last year’s winners. The match took place at Kenilworth, where Adrian Morris was a most obliging and hospitable host. The format of the competition requires that the two lowest-ranked players on each team partner each other in the doubles, which meant that David Prescott and Philip de Glanville were seriously out-gunned against Eugene Chang (an ex-Bath player, now an HC -1/2) and Trevor Billard (HC2). Despite a very nice 9 hoop break from David, the Bath pair lost -14, while Folke Pope lost his singles match -21 against Mark Simmerson, who was playing a great deal more ably than his HC9 would suggest. Only Bob Hart prevailed in the morning, with a +12T win against Sheffield’s relatively inexperienced captain Mags Crossland, playing as an HC14.
Sadly Bath didn’t fare any better in the afternoon, with David succumbing -21 to Eugene’s skilful play, and though Philip managed to salvage a +14 win against Trevor, both Folke and Bob lost their singles -14, and -3T respectively. The final result was 5:2 to Sheffield. We wish them well in the final against Middlesbrough.