Vale Badminton Club

The Ladies continued their winning ways and secured a 9-0 (yes that is correct and not a typo!) victory over Reardon Smith last night.

The Men’s B team were also playing against the same opposition and being the gentlemen that they are took the best courts and then only managed a 6-3 victory.

Thanks to super-sub Helen C who stood in for Sal and played with Helen S, the rest of the team being the regular partnerships of Suzanne and Sarah and Jayne and Kath. Victory was secured fairly easily with only one of the games going to three.

An 8.30pm start and in the pub by 10pm where the ladies were pleasantly surprised later to be joined by some of the men for a drink (thanks to Rob for buying a round!)

PS. Suzanne couldn’t make the pub as she had to rush home to watch Most Haunted Live - nearly as sad as the time Helen C rushed off to watch Lost! :)

After their defeat against Llantwit Fadre, Vale Men’s B pulled their socks up last night and won 6–3 against Reardon Smith at the National Sports Centre.

With tight score lines like, 25-23 and 22-20 in favour of Vale’s Men, we knew that it wasn’t going to be easy and Reardon Smith gave us a good run for our win. AlanD and Howard took all 3 of their games, Len and Rob took 2 with Ian and Steve taking 1.

However, even with this win under our belt we were to be overshadowed by the Vale Ladies who also played Reardon Smith Ladies at the same venue.

I am sure the ladies will want to do a write up of their own so I won’t spoil their night with the result, however I will say Reardon Smith men won the toss as to where at the sports centre we were to play, and it wasn’t in the Jubilee Hall, Sorry girls!

Just to let everybody know we don’t have any courts on Tuesday 18th December as there is a school Carol Service.

No news is good news I suppose. It was a repeat of the home match scoreline with all pairs having a great night - only one game being dropped.

News of the ‘ex-international player’ did the rounds and Chris’ games soon had an audience. He didn’t disappoint - plenty of deceptive flicks leaving the opponents flat-footed and the onlookers happy.

Final score 8-1

A good win on Sunday night for the Vale Mixed B. Lots of ‘gone to three’ so the match was closer than the scoreline suggests. Well done to Helen and Jack, Kath and Alan, Jayne and Howard. Final score 7-2.

Handicap for the Kerslake Cup game:- Vale A -2, Holm View B +2

Men’s A dusted off their sat-navs last night to travel to the far flung reaches of Tredegar. Chris took the obligatory ‘first-timer’ detour via New Tredegar Sports Centre then up and over the mountains to the correct venue and still managed to arrive by 8pm! [Mea culpa, I gave him the wrong post code - Ed.]

The match had some close games and some easy games (Tredegar having fielded an inexperienced and unenthusiastic 3rd pair) and all told it was over in about 90 minutes.

Jack and Chris took 3, Byron and Kinsey took 3, Glyn and Alan took 1.

Final score 7-2.

Friday 19th arrived and the ladies were not looking forward to spending their wine night playing badminton especially with only 2 pairs. It was a cold but clear evening that took us to Michaelston Community College for the first time. The place looked deserted and uninviting because it was the wrong place and it took another attempt before we arrived at the new sports hall.

I was not looking forward to entering the building in case any of the players were pupils of mine in which case I would suddenly have a terrible bout of stomach cramps. Luckily I didn’t recognise anyone so was happy to to prepare myself with plenty of warm up exercises! Sally and Suzanne began and it took a little while for them to get used to one another’s play but they beat the first pair in 2 rubbers and went on to do the same against the second and third pairs.

Kath and I take a little time to get in the groove but managed to beat the second and third pairs. However we did not want the juniors to feel down hearted by being beaten convincingly so we let them win one game just to be kind!

Once in the showers [a picture would have said a thousand words - Ed] Sally and I were looking forward to getting back to Cowbridge for the Friday night booze up but thought we might be held up by the possibility of a flood when the shower would not stop. The hall attendant came to our rescue (unfortunately not a hunky bloke) and sorted the problem and we headed for the bright lights of the A48.

Jayne

The Men’s B short winning run came to an abrupt end last night against a strong Llantwit Fadre team.

The opposition 1st pair took 3 games and Vale’s 3 pairs all comfortably beat Llantwit Fadre’s 3rd string making it clear the results against their 2nd pair would be critical.

Unfortunately all 3 Vale pairs lost against the useful but not unbeatable middle pair.

Thank you to Alison once again for scoring and support.

Well done to the Ladies who won their first match of the season against Penarth Juniors 5 games to 4.