George made to fight to keep hold of singles title

The two players served up a feast of attacking table tennis to round off the season on finals night at Cookley Sports Club.

This was the 79th finals night, with veteran committee member Dave Jefferies presenting the trophies as guest of honour.

Carroll, of Bewdley Institute, tried to capitalise on his serves with his powerful forehand but Webb blocked tenaciously and mounted his own attacks when he could. It made for an excellent game, with Carroll moving into a 2-1 lead after a slow start. He had his chances to win in four before Webb took the match into a decider, which the Bewdley player narrowly won 11-8.

Earlier in the evening Carroll paired up with his brother Frank, to again defeat Webb and his partner Stephane Bonnafous in the final of the Open Doubles. The brothers started exceedingly slowly against their opponents and were 2-0 down before starting their fightback to retain their title with a narrow 3-2 win.

Webb, a 20-year-old student who comes from Great Barr, has been a credit to the Kidderminster league this season and helped his club Hope Baptist A, from Stourbridge, to the Division One title. He is expected to play in the Birmingham Premier in the autumn.

Stourbridge's Baptist minister Adrian Argile did not need to call on any help from above to beat a lively Qian Zhang in the Restricted Final. Qian took the first game but Argile proved the steadier player for the rest of the match.

Holy Trinity's Steve New won a brace of titles on his debut appearance at Finals Night. He knuckled down to defeat the awkward Jon Goulding in Hard Bat final, then beat the same opponent to win the Handicap Singles. There was some consolation for Goulding when his son Archie was presented with the Junior Singles trophy.

In the other competitions Martin Madkins overcame a dreadful start against Adrian Jones to win the Veteran Singles. Madkins and his partner Steve Hammond also won the Vets' Doubles against Simon Morgan and Alex Westwood. Frenchman Stephane Bonnafous won the Super Veterans final, while at the other end of the age spectum, George Milnes took the Cadets trophy.

Hope Baptist A were the Division One winners, with Bewdley Institute A finishing as runners-up for the second year running.

Hope Baptist B took the Division Two title, with Harvington A coming second.

Cookley Dodgers won Division 3 ahead of runners-up Bewdley Institute B.

Stephane Bonnafous and Rob Hatherley shared the Div 1 award for most wins, with the awards for Div 2 going to Eric Calver and Div 3 to Archie Goulding.

The league's annual meeting will take place on Monday May 20 at the Oaks, Harvington.

Any teams who do not attend will be subject to a £20 fine.