Parsons Cup

While the Owen-George and Hobson Cup weekend may have been about the club’s juniors the Parsons and Ponsonby Cup weekend occasionally had an air of care in the community about it. And with vintage players came some vintage style dress. Fortunately the shorts were more like those seen in the Stanley Matthews era rather Boris Becker’s.

The only junior to make it thorough the boxes of the Parsons Cup was Alex Gordon who saw off challenges from David Aldwinckle and George Kruszynskyj 5-2 each to set up a Semi Final spot with Martin Trees. Thankfully George remained in the competition long enough to provide a welcome lasagne for the final day participants and supporters.

Trees beat David Bugge and Grant Arthur 5-3 and 5-4 on route to the semi-final surviving 5 match points against Grant before taking the match at 4-4.

Mark Leefe beat Jon Lambdon 5-4 before falling 5-1 to Chris Marguerie who book the first slot in the second semi-final.

Bernie Spratt overcame John Franklin 5-3 before pitching his arthritis against that of Keith Beechener in what the dedans described as the battle of wounded knee. Bernie survived a match point at 2-4 down before coming back to win 5-4 and book the last semi-final slot.

In the first semi-final it was youth that won out with Alex Gordon taking full advantage of the handicap difference to beat Martin Trees 5-0. The second semi-final was a much closer affair which saw Chris Marguerie finally emerge victorious over Bernie Spratt 5-3.

The final was a repeat of the box match between the pair in which Chris Marguerie beat the club’s junior champion 5-3. This time Alex took a quick lead going 4-2 up before Chris staged a comeback tying the match at 4-4. Chris then served a flawless game to take the title 5-4.