Sports Lags 3

There was, at college, one sporting field where our teams were remarkably successful and that was Table Tennis. Here are a few memories from Tony Garland who was noe of the mainstays of the team. St Matthias 1967-71 1967-68 was the second year of male intake at St. Matthias and the table tennis team had already been entered for the Student League. Paul Kempsall, Jeff Carter, Surfer Tim and Tony Garland, having been observed playing in the Hut, were asked to play for the College. The League comprised of teams from various colleges in the Bristol area and Halls of Residence from the University. The only difficulty that season was finding some of the locations that the team were expected to play at they won the league fairly convincingly. The 68-69 season was more of the same except that the team was joined by Trish? (m. Vinten), who was the only female to play for the college during these years and was a very good player. They again won the Students League but much more easily. The 1969-70 season saw major changes and achievements. First of all came the arrival of Phil Bert Mclennan an outstanding TT player and it was decided to enter the main Bristol Table Tennis League. The League had a policy that all new teams had to join the bottom league and work their way up over the seasons with accelerated progress for champions it meant that it comprised of teams of varying ability. Three further events come to mind. First of all the team again won the league which gave them promotion from Div 7c to Div 6a. Secondly one of the matches was at the Filton aircraft works and during the mid-session break the team was taken to a hangar to see one of the first Concorde aircraft. Thirdly the side were entered into the League Handicap Cup with a handicap of -270. This meant that teams gave them this points start over 20 games. In the earlier rounds they met teams from the lower divisions (but higher than they were) and beat them without requiring a handicap. They also beat a First Division team before meeting the top team in Bristol in the Semi-Final. Unfortunately on the day Tony Garland had an abscess on his shoulder and could not even grip a bat let alone play. Despite dogged defence from their opponents the team still only lost by 11 points thanks mainly to Berts outstanding play. The 1970-71 season saw St. Matthias again become Champions and earn promotion to Div 5a what happened after that perhaps someone can add. All of the current team left St. Matts and.....