The Kent Inter-Regional Champion Squad
This Year’s Inter-Regional Championships, that took place at Brean Sands over the weekend of 19th-20th September, resulted in a clean sweep by Kent of all the main titles including: Inter Regional Champions, Junior Champions, Challenge Champions, Best Team in Division 1 and Best Team in Challenge. In addition the region also had a player in the Division 2 Junior Champions team.
For the uninitiated the Inter-Regional Championships is the EPA’s largest competition held every September. Each of the EPA’s 15 “Regions” along with the Welsh are invited to send a squad of 8 open teams and one junior team to the event to compete in two divisions. However because two of the EPA’s Regions (Devon and Cornwall) combine to form one squad there is also an EPA Combined team, made up of players from the top 3 sides from division 1 the previous year, to make up the numbers. The 8 squads in each division then compete against each other over two days with the results of each region’s 9 teams counting towards the final total. As well as counting towards the overall total the results of the games between the junior teams also count towards their own separate championships. Finally there is also a separate Challenge competition where each region can enter another four triples teams to complete in a round robin tournament.
Kent got off to a good start on the Saturday with a 7 games to 2 win over Wales. The day also saw wins over East Midlands (5-4), Chiltern (5-4), Northern (7-2) and West Midlands (7-2) interspersed with narrow defeats against Eastern and Southern (both 4-5).
The Kent Inter-Regional Champion Squad
After seven rounds on the Saturday Kent finished the day in first place, narrowly leading from Chiltern on points difference. The competition format is designed to try and add an exciting climax to the competition, with the top two teams from day 1 drawn to play each other in the final round on day 2, and this is exactly what it delivered...
Mixed results on the Sunday saw Kent open up a lead with repeat wins against West Midlands (7-2) and Wales (8-1) before losing to East Midlands (3-6) and Southern (4-5) to allow Chiltern to within one game going into the final round. Due to our superior points difference this meant a 4-5 loss would have been enough to secure the championships. However the point situation was academic in the end as Kent won 5 of the first 6 games to secure the title.
The Kent Inter-Regional Champion Junior Team
The final match to finish, fittingly cheered on by all the Kent and Chiltern contingents, was between our junior teams, who finished 1 and 2 in the EPA Junior championships this year. Kent had previously beaten their rivals on the Saturday and a similar result in the final game gave them the title of Inter-Regional Junior Champions.
Top performers were Kent 6 (Dave Chalkly, Angie & Lee Jamieson) who won 10 of their 12 games with a points difference of +89, closely followed by the Kent Juniors (Alex Bruce, Gary Atkinson, Ben & Josh Littley) on 10 wins +49. These two teams finished first and second from all of the 72 teams competing in division 1.
The famous Kent team spirit that Richard King highlighted had been missing in recent years was there in abundance and team manager, Corinne Cooter, commented that she “had never seen so many Kent players remain behind [all resplendent in their new team kit sponsored by Jacques] for the presentation, despite the very late finish.”
| DIVISION 1 | |||||||
| POS | TEAM | WIN | FOR | AGST | DIFF | ||
| 1 | KENT | 67 | 1146 | 927 | 219 | ||
| 2 | CHILTERN | 63 | 1108 | 1021 | 87 | ||
| 3 | SOUTHERN | 59 | 1089 | 979 | 110 | ||
| 4 | E MIDLANDS | 59 | 1106 | 1020 | 86 | ||
| 5 | EASTERN | 50 | 993 | 1092 | -99 | ||
| 6 | W MIDLANDS | 49 | 1026 | 1144 | -118 | ||
| 7 | WALES PA | 44 | 984 | 1112 | -128 | ||
| 8 | NORTHERN | 41 | 981 | 1138 | -157 | ||
| DIVISION 1 JUNIORS | |||||||
| POS | TEAM | WIN | FOR | AGST | DIFF | ||
| 1 | KENT | 10 | 143 | 94 | 49 | ||
| 2 | SOUTHERN | 9 | 139 | 84 | 55 | ||
| 3 | E MIDLANDS | 8 | 148 | 103 | 45 | ||
| 4 | CHILTERN | 8 | 135 | 116 | 19 | ||
| 5 | WALES PA | 5 | 106 | 116 | -10 | ||
| 6 | W MIDLANDS | 4 | 105 | 134 | -29 | ||
| 7 | NORTHERN | 3 | 87 | 137 | -50 | ||
| 8 | EASTERN | 1 | 74 | 153 | -79 | ||
Stat Attack – Kent dished out 6 ‘fannies’ during the tournament, including 3 in the same round against West Midlands but they didn’t concede any!
Kent had 9 members playing in the EPA Combined team in division 2. Playing at No.5 were John Middleton, John Hines, Sean Daffey and Paul Collins. Margaret Yates, Irene Gibbs, Diane Bryant and Joyce Nash played at No.6 while Ryan Rudden (Lordswood) played in the junior team with two youngsters from Chiltern Region.
The combined squad finished the weekend in a fantastic third place. An incredible achievement when you consider that none of the teams finished higher than 13th in their own regional qualifiers and they were playing against the top 8 teams from the other regions.
Going two places better were the Combined junior team who won the division 2 junior title with 10 wins out of 12.
| DIVISION 2 | |||||||
| POS | TEAM | WIN | FOR | AGST | DIFF | ||
| 1 | ISLE OF WIGHT | 68 | 1189 | 947 | 242 | ||
| 2 | LONDON | 68 | 1146 | 982 | 164 | ||
| 3 | COMBINED | 61 | 1104 | 1017 | 87 | ||
| 4 | T VALLEY | 50 | 1070 | 1116 | -46 | ||
| 5 | ANGLIA | 45 | 1048 | 1093 | -45 | ||
| 6 | SUSSEX | 42 | 951 | 1192 | -241 | ||
| 7 | KERDEV | 41 | 1004 | 1165 | -161 | ||
| 8 | G WESTERN | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| DIVISION 2 JUNIORS | |||||||
| POS | TEAM | WIN | FOR | AGST | DIFF | ||
| 1 | COMBINED | 9 | 130 | 85 | 45 | ||
| 2 | ISLE OF WIGHT | 7 | 128 | 112 | 16 | ||
| 3 | KERDEV | 6 | 119 | 98 | 21 | ||
| 4 | LONDON | 6 | 110 | 98 | 12 | ||
| 5 | THAMES V | 6 | 109 | 114 | -5 | ||
| 6 | ANGLIA | 3 | 90 | 127 | -37 | ||
| 7 | SUSSEX | 2 | 78 | 130 | -52 | ||
| 8 | G WESTERN | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
The Winning Kent Challenge Squad
Kent got off to a winning start in the Challenge Cup event with a 3-1 win in the first round and didn’t look back after that. Having already secured the Challenge title before the final round they made sure with a 4-0 demolition of Thames Valley.
Top team out of the 52 competing in this competition were the Kent 3 side of Chas Shrimpton, Alan Creegan, Keith & Kevin Atkinson who won 11 of their 12 games. Kent 1 (Scott Ashby, Matthew Whatley, Chris Perry and Paul Hardwick) were close behind with 10 wins in what was a very solid performance by the whole squad.
| CHALLENGE CUP | |||||||
| POS | TEAM | WIN | FOR | AGST | DIFF | ||
| 1 | KENT | 36 | 550 | 384 | 166 | ||
| 2 | CHILTERN | 31 | 552 | 426 | 126 | ||
| 3 | WALES PA | 29 | 495 | 414 | 81 | ||
| 4 | E MIDLANDS | 29 | 500 | 428 | 72 | ||
| 5 | G WESTERN | 28 | 476 | 437 | 39 | ||
| 6 | NORTHERN | 23 | 492 | 457 | 35 | ||
| 7 | ANGLIA | 23 | 464 | 505 | -41 | ||
| 8 | W MIDLANDS | 23 | 449 | 494 | -45 | ||
| 9 | EASTERN | 22 | 480 | 464 | 16 | ||
| 10 | SOUTHERN | 22 | 483 | 489 | -6 | ||
| 11 | T VALLEY | 17 | 389 | 531 | -142 | ||
| 12 | ISLE OF WIGHT | 15 | 393 | 556 | -163 | ||
| 13 | SUSSEX | 14 | 407 | 545 | -138 | ||
The EPA presentation, that immediately followed the conclusion of the Inter Regional Championships, could just has easily been a KPA AGM judging by the amount of Kent players called up to receive awards. These included:
Report: Mark Cooter