Mary Rose – Pendle & Craven beat Nottingham 4-3 by Liz Wilson (17/07/07)
Pendle’s team of Robert Essler (2), Peter Wilson (3), Liz Wilson (3) and Abdul Ahmad (6) started the match as underdogs against the Nottingham Team of Dean Bennison (1), Lawrence Whittaker (1.5), William Gee (1.5) & Martin Beacon (3.5). The morning’s weather was unusually pleasant and warm. Liz’s match against Martin was very close but Liz pulled it back at the end and won +2. In the other singles game Abdul had to take on the hard hitting youngster William Gee (16 years old) Abdul decided the only way to win against such tough opposition was to get in there, go for it and impress and this he did forcing errors out of William which he managed to capitalise on. Abdul came out the eventual winner +5 – a remarkable result. The doubles game finished a very respectable +17 to Pendle against superior opposition in which Robert’s excellent hitting in was very important. Pendle went into the afternoon’s games 3-0 up.
The afternoon saw a big change of fortunes. Liz Wilson lost -26 in 40 minutes to William Gee and it looked like all the other three games were going badly too. Fortunately Abdul continued to play doggedly and came out +6 winner over Martin. The score now stood at 4-1 and this gave Pendle the match. This was a great relief to the two games on the other lawn. Peter lost – 23 to Lawrence and the final game, which could have gone either way) was eventually won for Nottingham by Dean +4. Man of the match was undoubtedly Abdul Ahmad.
Pendle now go on to play Bowdon in the Semi-final.
Results: Robert Essler and Peter Wilson vs Dean Bennison and Lawrence Whittaker +17 to Pendle; Liz Wilson vs Martin Beacon +2 Pendle; Abdul Ahmad vs William Gee +6 Pendle; Robert Essler vs Dean Bennison +4 Nottingham; Peter Wilson vs Lawrence Whittaker +23 Nottingham; Liz Wilson vs William Gee +26 Nottingham; Abdul Ahmad vs Martin Beacon +6 Pendle