The Summer League competition had 22 team entered from 10 clubs, and these were divided into 3 divisions,1 consisting of 8 teams and 2 consisting of 7 teams.

There were 123 players registered and each player was given their own individual handicap and the handicaps in turn generated an additional no of points for the player with the highest handicap.

All teams played 7 matches a win being worth 2 points and a draw 1 point. The top 2 teams in each division qualified for the finals to be played at the Almondsbury Club on Saturday 9^th September.

Those teams were Almonds B, Filton Vipers and Nailsea A, all of whom were winners of their divisions with Cleeve & Claverham A, Portishead Walton B and Knowle & Brislington ,as runners up in their respective divisions.

Cleeve & Claverham A qualified  as runner up in Div 1 on points difference over  Nailsea A. Both teams had won 5 games.

Filton Vipers won division 2 being undefeated and gaining 14 points during the league campaign and it was Thursday 7^th September before Portishead Walton B could be confirmed as the runners up with 8 points followed by 4 teams on 6 points each. Tight division.

The 3^rd division was even tighter as 3 teams finished on 12 points with Nailsea coming out top and Knowle & Bris filling the runners up spot on points difference over Almonds F.

The Morning session of the finals on Saturday consisted of 3 matches played as the normal summer league matches. The match between Almonds B and Portishead Walton resulted in a resounding victory for Almonds by 53 points. The other games, Nailsea A v’s Cleeve & Claverham A and Filton Vipers v’s Knowle and Bris were much closer affairs, both still in the balance going into the last game of each match.

Cleeve came out winners over Nailsea with a 13 points advantage and Knowle and Bris  beat Filton Vipers by just 8 points.

The afternoon session was played on a league basis with each team playing 2 matches. The 3 matches though were played using 3 tables with all the players being involved throughout the afternoon either playing or scoring. This seemed to suit everyone and the whole day was a joy to part of as the matches were played in good spirit and also with a sense of fun albeit they all wanted to win. The outcome of the afternoon round robin matches was that Knowle and Bris won both their matches beating Almonds B by 54 points and Cleeve and Claverham A by 38 points thus becoming the 2006 BDTTA Summer League Champions. The match between Almonds B and Cleeve & Claverham A ended in a draw.

Congratulations to Lloyd Gregory, Rebecca Gregory & Jess Coggins (she topped the averages in the finals with a 100% record) who made up the Knowle & Bris team and thanks also to all the teams that took part in the summer league this year. We will hopefully run the summer league again next year and would encourage more teams to take part in what has proved to a fun way of playing serious Table tennis.   

Aylwyn Powell – Summer League Organiser.