Melbourn lost 3-20

An injury-depleted 1sts suffered their third five strings to nil defeat in a row as they went down 3-20 at that outpost of the Cambridgeshire Leagues, Bedford (erm…), which is where Towers 1sts are based.

Melbourn were heading for defeat in this one after Mike Herd (3), Miles Jeanneret (4) and Mark Oppen (5) all fell to 3-1 defeats, Mike going down 11-5, 5-11, 4-11, 4-11 to Bruce St. Ledger, Miles falling 11-6, 9-11, 3-11, 9-11 to Ian Thomas and Mark being beaten 3-11, 8-11, 13-11, 5-11 by Jonathan Towers.

That meant Chris Shaw (1) and Vinod Duraikan (2) were in search of crumbs – but these weren’t on offer either as Chris lost 8-11, 8-11, 10-12 to Steven Davies and Vinod was beaten 8-11, 7-11, 4-11 by Steve Evans.

The loss meant the 1sts remained 8th in the Division 1 table, but now just six points ahead of March 1sts, who have two matches left to play to our side’s one. The recent run of negative results means finishing in Cambs Division 1’s relegation play-off place seems increasingly likely…