Princes St A 5 Crosby A 5
Argyle F 0 Princes St F 10
Mini Match Report

In the week that we celebrated the 503rd anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt, when the English army led by King Henry V defeated the numerically superior French army on enemy soil, the Princes A team had the honour of hosting the all conquering Crosby A . Would they go the same way as every other team and be cannon fodder ?

The Princes were led by the brave Lord Darren of Zetland ably assisted by Colin Turner , Sir David of Noden and making his first appearance of the season Michael Stewart. Top longbow man Matty Wilson was out still far from recovered from his ankle injury.

The visitors were also without their finest as Champion of all he surveys Lord Dempsey was otherwise engaged. However their strength was undimished as Queen Sylvia Graham was joined by the Welsh wizard Yameen Al -Dahiri ( currently ranked no. 4 mens under 21 ) Sir Liam of Shaw and Francois Rafferty - a Frenchman if ever I saw one.

The Princes top team have had a poor start to the season and when the reigning champions surged into an early lead it looked bleak for them.

The match kicked off with the two no.1's Colin and Yameen in a one sided tussle that ended quickly in favour of Yameen.

This was quickly followed by Sir Liam beating Lord Darren with a wonderful display of controlled hitting - truely Sir Liam has never played as well.

Could Sir David do any better against Francois ? No was the very quick answer as this game also went the way of Crosby - again in 3.

The only question now was would this match last longer than the Champions previous visit to the Hall of Happiness when they beat the E team in 56 minutes in the Anon cup.

However the brave knight Colin stepped into the breech and stopped Queen Sylvia in her tracks - 3-1 to the visitors.

This did not rally the troops and Crosby won the next 2 to take a 5-1 lead. However one of those matches between Micheal and the Welsh wizard hinted at what was to come next as the avid Evertonian played some superb table tennis to take his illustrious opponent to 4 games.

With everyone thinking about retiring to the Zetland and licking their wounds the incredible comeback started. Lord Darren beat Sylvia and Michael continued his great form to give Francois the runaround ( literally ).

With the 2 doubles remaining it was 5-3 to Crosby.

Amazingly the brave Princes followed Lord Darren's battlecry and took both doubles . Incredible. 5-5.

This was a match that you just had to witness , and I did and I didn't as I left when we were 3-1 down to watch the F team at Argyle!

The match reminded me of Everton's fightback at Old Trafford to draw 4-4 and do mortal damage to United's title challenge

Will this result be fatal to Crosby's chances of retaining their crown ? Probably not

On the other hand will this result kickstart the Princes season ? Surely yes.

On the other side of town F team Captain Dave Mullan marshalled his troops of Gordon Wood , Dave Williams and boy wonder Sam Davies to face Argyle F. This was a hugely experienced Princes St team. Normally squad absences mean that you field a weaker team but in this case the opposite was true as the 4 Princes were the only ones available out of a 7 person squad.

Argyle seemed perturbed about the quality of their opposition and did not perform at their best.

The flow of the game was affected by the decision to play the match on 2 tables in a room which is usually used as a single table venue. Unfortunately the lack of screens between the 2 tables meant that lets being called were a regular occurance.

The Argyle team of Tom Johnston , Mo & Kasraa Mohammadi and Phil Marshall who had all enjoyed wonderful averages up until tonight were no match on the night for the Princes who ran out 10 nil winners.