The Wilmott Cup, Season 2004 - 2005: Northumbria moves on to the Final

The Wilmott Cup is an annual inter league competition for senior men, organised by ETTA (English Table Tennis Association). Teams of 3 representatives from the league compete with each player competing against every player from the opposing team, with a maximum of 9 matches needed for a result. The first team to record 5 victories wins that match. Representatives from the league must be active competitors in the league to qualify for the competition.

In the previous round, played on 22 January at Stockton, Northumbria competed against teams from the Stockton, Sunderland and Hull leagues winning all their matches to progress to the quarter final stage.

The next round was to be played at four regional venues. The group winners would progress to the final stage to be held at Derby over the weekend of 21 to 22 May 2005.

There were three teams due to play at the Northern venue - Northumbria, Lincoln and Leamington Spa. Regretably Leamington Spa were unable to field a team.

Saturday 26 March saw the playing of these quarter finals with groups of 3 and 4 teams competing at 4 regional venues. The north regional venue was hosted by Northumbria who chose the Sporting Club Cramlington, home of Cramlington Table Tennis Club, to stage the matches.

Northumbria, the host team, consisted of Eddie Smith, Dave Godbold (both from the Birtley A team) and Andrew Wilkinson (NSYMCA "A").

The Lincoln team consisted of Andy Wignall, Mark Dooghue and Jason Ramage.

The current ETTA ranking lists rank Smith, Wilkinson and Godbold at 37, 44 and 64 in the country with Wignall, Ramage and Donoghue being ranked at 98, 124 and 135.

On paper it looked like this was to be Nothumbria's match and for the first four games the form was true with Smith beating Donoghue 11-9, 11-4, 13-11; Godbold beating Wignall 11-5, 11-7, 11-9; Wilkinson beating Ramage 13-11, 11-4, 11-13, 11-4; and Smith beating Wignall 7-11, 11-6, 11-3, 11-8.

The next match saw a recovery from Lincoln when Donoghue beat Wilkinson 11-9, 11-9, 5-11, 11-9. The recovery continued with Ramage beating Godbold 5-11, 11-9, 11-4, 11-8 to make the score 4 - 2 to Northumbria.

With Northumbria still seeking that match winning 5th game Wilkinson came to the table to play his final set for the day against Wignall. This time there was no mistake and Wilkinson won with a comfortable 11-1, 11-8, 11-8 scoreline which means Northumbria progress to the Finals stage at Derby in May.

Thanks go to Jimmy Scope who umpired all the matches, Peter Wilkinson for co-ordinating the Northern region matches and Cramlington Table Tennis Club for provision of equipment and venue.