After a first half drubbing at the hands of Merseyside and Durham, Northumbrias mens team had to travel to Norwich to play in the Relegation group of Inter-county Division One.
We had the task to finish in the top 2 to stay up, initially it was from 4 teams but Shropshire withdrew so only 2 matches had to be played, essentially winning one match would almost guarantee we remianed in the division.
TEAM- Dave Barnett, Matt Hardy, Nick Southern, Matt Sampson and Chris Clinton
The first match was against Leinster, Clinton and Southern were first on court and set us up well with 2 victories, Clinton was 2-0 down and came back to win and Southern won 3-1 with 3 games going to tiebreaks. We only then needed one more win and Barnett at number 1 took us over the line with a 3-0 win, both Sampson and Hardy lost out narrowly 3-2 but a 3-2 victory over all.
The Second match was against Norfolk, the start wasn’t so good this time both Clinton and Southern lost 3-0, Barnett got us on the board with his second 3-0 win, this left it up to Sampson and Hardy to try and win through. Sampson played out of his skin to win a very close 3-2 but Hardy couldn’t do the same losing out to a very strong Norfolk number 2.
These results meant we hung on to division 1 for next season, well done to the team.
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