St Ives Badminton Club

The fixture list for the 2008-09 season is now available in the Fixtures section. Pay & Play night have been really busy again this year - it's been excellent to catch up with old friends, and excellent to see lots of new faces as well. Make sure you get over and download the fixtures to know when your matches start!

It's come around again already! St Ives Badminton Club announces the traditional pre-season Pay & Play evenings. These are opportunities to come along - whether you are a member or not - and blow away the summer cobwebs. These P&P sessions are to be held from 8:00-11:00pm at the St. Ivo Centre, on 19th, 20th, 26th and 27th August. The season begins proper with clubnight on Tuesday 9th September.

The minutes of the Club AGM are also available to download.

St Ives celebrated historic victories for it's mixed teams again this year - with the Mixed1 team winning the Bill Pink trophy again (the SIXTH time in a row) and the Mixed4 team also recapturing the Handicapped competition.

Bill Pink Match Report: The beginning of the match really brought it home to the team the extent of the challenge that a very strong University team would pose. In the singles, Rob lost the first end very quickly (possibly he needed to shake off his garlic and pasta 'power lunch' and rowse himself from his 'power nap'!) He then put up a decent fight to take the game to three ends, but couldn't live with Sam's speed and agility in the third. Sara had trouble finding the court (she needed a decent racket) and Kat played very smoothly to take the game.

In the levels, Rob and Daniel won another tricky game, and Amanda and Faye also powered through to a win. Then in the second round Sarah and Faye stuggled - Faye was suffering from a hip injury by this stage, and they were beaten by Kat and partner. James and Daniel got on top after losing the first end, with James' smashes coming off beautifully, resulting in another St Ives win.

That left us 3-3 going into the mixed, with reasonable certainty that Faye and Rob wouldn't be able to stand up to Rob and Kat, because Faye said she couldn't move (a rather important element of the game of badminton you understand!). Sure enough, Rob and Faye lost, but James and Amanda picked up theirs quickly. Having lost the first end, Daniel and Sara were left last on court to grind out the second game, and then in the third (Sara was playing with a decent racket by now - ie. Daniel's!) they really asserted themselves and played through to a GLORIOUS victory! Cue much rather obnoxious cheering and whooping!

The evening was topped off with some absolutely awful photographs of the winners, and then a slapup Indian to make up all the lost calories (plus some extra to tide us over the summer...)

Handicapped Match Report: Team members: Ben Carter and Lauren Pickering, David Hunter and Celia Pickering, and Tony Brzosko and Katharine Tateno.

A special mention must be made of the first pair, Ben Carter and Lauren Pickering. They are both junior members of the club and are products of the progressive St. Ives junior club coaching system and staff. (It bears mention that two of the Bill Pink winning Mixed1 team were also products of the St Ives junior system, although a rather more seasoned vintage!).

St. Ives won 17 of the 18 ends played for a total of 376 points. Hawks totalled 240 points, resulting in St. Ives taking an advantage of 136 points to the presentation of the handicap. The captain of Hawks revealed the handicap for the Hawks team of + 75 points. This handicap of was added to their score giving them a total of 315 points. This was still not enough to overcome the St. Ives points score of 376. St. Ives Mixed4 won by a 61 point margin which divided by the number of ends equates to 3.38 points per end.

St Ives Badminton Club’s annual tournament night held on March 25th proved to be another highly successful and enjoyable event. Members representing 13 of the 14 club teams played in Mens & Ladies Singles, followed by a Mixed Doubles tournament.

All the matches were scored on a handicapped basis which led to many hard fought (and exhausting) games between all players.

Final Results:

Mens Singles:

• Winner: Ian Storer
• Runner Up: Marc Bax

Ladies Singles:

• Winner: Nel Soetekouw
• Runner Up: Celia Pickering

Mixed Doubles:

• Winners: Celia Pickering & Marc Bax
• Runners Up: Christine Key & Vernon Reuter

Thanks to all those players who took part – some of whom were clearly not so used to having to run for every shot!! Many congratulations to the winners and runners up and special thanks to Sandra Dennis for organising all three tournaments whilst playing in two!!

The Club celebrated historic victories for it's Mixed I team again this year. Both the league and Bill Pink Trophies were won again, which means the team have successfully secured the double for five years back-to-back! The Mixed II team also battled their way to the handicapped competition final, but were edged out by a tough handicap. Congratulations to all those involved.

This season's fixture list is now available in the Fixtures section. Club nights have been packed the last few weeks, so welcome to all our new members!

The new badminton season begins very soon ! The club plays two 'warm-up' Pay-and-Play sessions before the start of the full season - these are on Wednesday 23 and 30 August. First full clubnight is on Tuesday 12 September. Any visitors or players interested in joining are welcome to attend.

Subscription fees remain the same, and please make every effort to get them to our new Treasurer Marc Bax before 19th September to ensure insurance coverage.

The Club celebrated winning the Bill Pink Tournament again last week. Clicking on the image will give you a larger picture:



An excellent result again - well done John, Robert, Stephen, Sandra, Faye and Caroline !

The annual club mixed doubles tournament was held on Tuesday this week. The tournament was played in excellent spirits, and the closed handicaps (and disproportion of men to women !) saw the tension held right until the end of the night.
The results were:

• Winners: David Hunter & Caroline Heyes
  
• Second: Daniel Bates & Celia Pickering
  
• Joint third: Phil Holley & Faye Gregory, Stephen Pickering & Carole Walden, Jacqui Dennis & Marc Bax.
  

The Club celebrates two winning teams in the Mixed Handicap and the Bill Pink Tournaments. Clicking on the images will give you a larger picture:











Another excellent end to a season - well done everyone !

The Club's Annual General Meeting is held as the last club night of the season tonight at the St Ivo Centre. Please all make the effort to attend. PS. I'm afraid Ray's Newsletter had to be removed - I'm sure he'll make another one for the end of the season !