The 2018 Club Doubles were held today. After a chilly start the weather brightened and the sun finally came out. 20 club members contested the doubles and the 10 pairs were drawn out of a “virtual” hat with 1st Division players seeded to avoid them playing together. The competition was in the form of a melee (not surprisingly one definition of melee is “a confused crowd of people”) where the pairs remained together for all three games.
Before play got underway, players were delighted to see that Club Secretary, Roger, had turned chef and produced hot dogs with all the accoutrements. Fortified by these delicacies, the first round, timed at 40 minutes, got underway. At the end of the round, Phil Roberts & Vickie Adshead had got themselves into pole position with a 13-1 win over Carol Maroney & Peter Kensett closely followed by Lynda Hodges & Roger Green who ran out 13-3 winners over John Maroney & Gareth Spencer.
A second timed round was more closely fought than the first with the best winning score being 13-6 by Tom Mills & Keith Nott over the unfortunate John & Gareth – it seems it just wasn’t their day. There were only 3 pairs on 2 wins and these were led by Lynda & Roger on +15, closely followed by Tom & Keith on +14 and Sean Smith & Roger Griffin on +12.
So into the final un-timed round where Tom & Keith put themselves into an almost unassailable lead with a rapid 13-3 win over Michelle Spencer and Mike Wigg for a total of +24. Could either of the other pairs eclipse this fine result? The first to fall were Sean & Roger who quickly conceded 4 points against Bill Mains and Ian Baildon-Smith which meant they could not overtake Tom & Keith even though they eventually won 13-9. All eyes were on Lynda & Roger but they too succumbed, going down 6-13 to Phil & Vickie. So the final result was confirmed as:
| Postn | Names | Wins | Pts Diff |
| 1 | Tom Mills & Keith Nott | 3 | +24 |
| 2 | Sean Smith & Roger Griffin | 3 | +14 |
| 3 | Phil Roberts & Vickie Adshead | 2 | +13 |
President Mike gave thanks to everyone for taking part and to Roger for providing the hot dogs before congratulating Tom & Keith on becoming 2018 Doubles Champions and presenting them with the doubles trophy and individual plaques to commemorate their win.
So its on to the Club Triples on 4 November 2018.
