HELD AT SPORT IRELAND CAMPUS, OCTOBER 28TH – NOVEMBER 1ST

GUERNSEY OVER 75’s BRING HOME THE SILVER

There is an important Table Tennis event held yearly which has remained a low profile in the sporting calendar and is in the opposite spectrum of our prestigious youth tournaments, and this is the Veterans Home Countries hosting Ireland, Scotland, England, Jersey, Isle of Man, Wales, and Guernsey.

Each Country host the Tournament on a rotation basis entering teams in The Over 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 75’s as well as Doubles and Singles knockouts.

This year our teams will be travelling on the 28th September to Dublin with the following:-

Over 40’s – Jamie Ferbrache, Steve Ozanne

Over 50’s – Men: Craig Dunning , Ian Le Page

Ladies: Dawn Morgan, Kay Chivers

Over 60’s – Lionel Jones, Peter Vivian, Kathleen Copeland (IRE)

Over 70’s – Rob Vile, Terry Trustum

Over 75’s – Keith Opie, Maurice James.

In most events they will be competing against many ex international players from the opposing competition, and this year will be even harder as Jersey will not be represented so the other countries will field a B team. It was left to the Over-75 team of Keith Opie and Maurice James to arrive back home with a silver medal in the team event, duplicating last year’s performance where they also received silver in the doubles, but this year that eluded them when, after winning the group they then crashed out to the pair from Scotland.

The dynamic duo of Kay Chivers and Dawn Morgan in the Over-50 Ladies Team who, in the past have had some impressive and classic wins collecting the most silver of all the veterans teams, were up against strong opposition with 2 teams from England and a strong home team from Ireland.

They did extremely well to beat Scotland 5-0, narrowly lost to England B 3-2, England A being too strong, but Dawn beating their number 2.

Ireland games were close encounters but went the way of the home team with Dawn securing a win from their no 1

The field was too strong in the men’s 50’s team event and Craig Dunning and Ian Le Page were content with the fact they both rose to the challenge and gave a notable performance. The Over-60 team which is a mix of two men and one lady, was an array of events, firstly Andy Gill had to pull out at the last minute and Lionel Jones gallantly took his place, and as we had no lady travelling, we had to borrow Kathleen Copeland from Ireland, who proved her worth as she won the only 4 matches.

Terry Trustum and Rob Vile found the 70s event a bit different than the local Islands standard and it was left to Terry to take the only win against Scotland, but many of the games went to 5 so it could have been a different story. Toughest of all was in the Over-40s with Jamie Ferbrache and Steve Ozanne fighting against extremely good opposition, and at the same time gave an impressive performance just losing 3-2 to Wales and Ireland B

Due to difficult travel arrangements, most players had to return on the Sunday thereby missing the singles event, however Craig Dunning and Steve Ozanne stayed and Craig did well to place out of the group into the knockout.

 Home Nations Veterans Website