This season the Hampshire & IOW Ladies’ 60s team played in Division 1 Group B against Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Hereford and Worcester, Lancashire and Middlesex.

The team had four main players this year and we welcomed Sue Lewis into our age group who played brilliantly in winning all of her singles matches. Judy Slaney, Gilly Christmas and Liz Davies all played very regularly and we were grateful to Jane Timmis for playing down. We also welcomed, new to the team for one match, Claire Reid and she will hopefully become a regular part of our squad next year. We showed great commitment as a team, always prepared to play assuming we are fit and always prepared to travel.

We had a great season winning all of our group matches and finished as Group 1B winners, which qualified us for the National Finals held in Sheffield over the weekend of Friday 28th – Sunday 30th October to play against Kent.

Unfortunately, Judy was injured for the weekend, so Jane stepped and, although given special dispensation to play, Jane was only able to play in the doubles. As this was sprung on us very much at the last minute, we couldn’t field our team as we would have wished and not quite to our strengths. This was disappointing having travelled all the way to Sheffield!

The result was 2-3 loss to Kent with a good win from Sue in the singles and a win for Liz and Jane in the doubles. Nevertheless, it was a great achievement to have qualified for the finals.

A very big thank you to a supportive and hardworking team who have all made a great contribution and made my life as captain as easy as possible.

Liz Davies
Captain