After winning promotion from division 5 the team of Martin, Cameron, Simon, Lee and Josh was ready to take division 4 by storm!

The season got off to a bad start when no.1 Martin got injured on the eve of the first match. Despite this, all players stepped up a place narrowly losing the first couple of matches 3-2. In both matches the team had the chance to win but unfortunately weren’t able to pull through with Simon and Cameron both going down to 3-2 defeats. For both these matches, Mark Manuel kindly stepped up comfortably winning 3-0 and 3-1 to provide some valuable points for the team.

After a disappointing start, the team welcomed the Northern Juniors to Eldon. With Martin still injured James Gilbert stepped up to the no.5 spot securing a hard-fought 3-2 victory. Josh continued his winning streak, having been undefeated the previous campaign, with eventually Simon securing the first victory of the season for Eldon 2. With Josh leaving in November it was time for Mark Steven to step up permanently from Eldon 3 to help with the push for promotion.

This combined with the return of Martin to no.1 started a 3-match winning streak. At the same time, Simon decided to call time on his captaincy to focus solely on his playing career. The decision immediately paid off with some much improved performances providing 3 victories on the trot. Eldon 2 finished the first half of the season strongly to set up a thrilling 4-way battle for promotion.

The second half of the season didn’t get off to the best of starts with the team losing a tight match to fellow promotion chasers Sunderland. With the match at 2-1, courtesy of victories from Mark and Lee, Martin had the chance to win against the league’s top player undefeated all season. After fighting back from 13-8 down in the 5th Martin served out to hand his opponent match ball. He duly obliged to take an epic match 3-2. Cameron was fighting hard in his match before his opponent burst a vein in his head. Despite his injuries, he took Cameron down 3-1 in a match of small margins.

After struggling in the first half of the season Lee volunteered to move down the pecking order to 5 and allow Mark Steven to play above him. This noble act paid off with Lee finishing the seasons strongly winning 5 of his 6 remaining matches.

With the season reaching its thrilling conclusion there were still four teams (Eldon, Newcastle Uni, Scottezi and Sunderland) in the hunt for promotion separated by only 15 points. At the same time, there was the small matter of the league cup quarter-final against Scottezi away at Tynemouth to attend to. Things didn’t go to plan with the team being comprehensively beaten apart from Simon who put in an aggressive attacking performance to win 3-1.

The team had to quickly put this behind them with the final 3 matches against Newcastle uni, Consett and Scotezzi to decide promotion. A surprisingly weak Newcastle squad put up minimal resistance losing 20-3. Lee had the toughest match of the night narrowly winning 15-12 in the 5th. The win put the team in 3rd place with a game in hand. A hard-fought 4-1 victory against Consett guaranteed promotion with 11 points from the final game securing the title. Scottezi threw everything at the Eldon team but in the end, the match was over before Cameron and Simon even stepped on court. Eldon 2 finished top of the league securing yet another title and promotion!

After a summer spent training the 2nd team can look forward to a big challenge in division 3! Congratulations to the team including all players from the 3rd team who stepped up to provide cover throughout the season. 

Martin Bone