Celebration time for Little Snoring as they win table tennis title for first time

Published: 7:50 AM June 1, 2017 Updated: 8:19 PM October 10, 2020

Doubles and Handicap Cup winners Bircham A, from left to right Laura Marsh, Andy Marsh and Aaron Howell. Picture: League - Credit: Archant

The 2016/17 season in the Fakenham Table Tennis League finished with Little Snoring A becoming league champions for the first time.

League winners Little Snoring A with the Dereham & Fakenham Times Shield, from left to right, Garry Crew, Chris Fuller, Steve Price and David Foster. Picture: League - Credit: Archant

The Snoring team of David Foster, Chris Fuller, Steve Price, Steve Damms, Garry Crew and Mike Thornton won all of their 16 league matches and in the process scored 219 points out of possible 240.

The battle for the runners-up spot went down to the last game of the season as Billingford managed the 7-3 win they needed against Thorpe Nelson to put them level on points with Bircham A and secure second place only by virtue of games won.

Although Bircham A narrowly missed out on the runners-up spot in the league, the team of Andy, Marsh, Aaron Howell and Laura Marsh won both of the cup competitions by beating Billingford 5-3 in the Doubles Cup final and Thorpe Trafalgar 245-240 in the Handicap Cup final.

The end of season was celebrated at The Hourglass, Sculthorpe where all of the trophies were presented with David Foster gaining the highest average. The sports person of season went to jointly to Archie Rayner and Aaron Howell while the most improved player was Pete Fuller.

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The top five in the individual players averages were: Dave Foster (Snoring A) played 33 won 32, 96.9pc; Chris Fuller (Snoring A ) 45/42/93.3; David Lake (Billingford) 36/33/91.6; Aaron Howell (Bircham A) 39/33/84.6; Pete Fuller (Billingford) 42/35/83.3.

The last of this season’s Star Paving Services North Norfolk League cup finals was the Handicap Singles as Aylsham Enterprise’s Ben Briggs (26), Andy Gale (25) and Daniel Atkins (26) battled Poachers’ David Foster (5), Chris Fuller (18) and Andy Marsh (14) at Gresham’s School.

With Aylsham winning 4-3 the eighth encounter was the battle of the unbeaten players. Trailing 5-26 at the start, Foster again went off with a full head of steam, going through his full range of shots. Atkins refused to be intimidated and came out with all his best shots as well. Both players knew how big this game was with a win for Foster leaving a one game shoot-out in the decisive ninth battle.Yet again Atkins played a blinder in the second half and every time it looked like he was being caught he came back with his own great shots to win 51-44 as Aylsham took the final 5-3.