BAT?S Badminton Club took on University in the final of the Plymouth and District Badminton League?s Beckly Cup and it proved to be one of the matches of the season with both teams producing outstanding badminton. With University having secured top spot in division 3 by a large margin BAT?s players they would have to fight hard to win every point. Once again they fielded a team containing five junior players out of the team of six and they never gave up all evening, running down every shot. David Williams and Abi Maunder again led the way for BAT?s by winning games and earning important points towards the total. Playing against experienced county and international players was a new experience for David and Abi but they accredited themselves well. Jonathon Freeman and Steph Ferraro again played well together to boost the BAT?s total but found the strength and depth of the University players sometimes hard to live with. Speed and agility was the University?s watchword and on occasions BAT?s supposedly winning shots suddenly reappeared on their side of the net and had to be dealt with again. Alan Berry and Rachael Williams knew they were going to struggle to gain points but gallantly stuck to the task and played each point on its merit, often surprising the University pairings through continually managing to retrieve lost causes. In the final two games of the evening, against the University first pairing, Rachael demonstrated her serving skills to the best by taking 13 points off them. At the end it was University who won the Beckly Cup by just 28 points but the whole evening had been played in the best possible spirit, and badminton itself was the winner.
