Coventry juniors Aaron Riley (16), Taran Dhillon (17) and George Allison (12) travelled to Birmingham on Saturday and made a great start to this season’s first session of the National Junior League winning all five of their matches. Aaron and Taran won all ten of their individual matches but the surprise package was twelve year old George Allison, coming in as a late substitute, who showed his potential winning seven matches against players up to 5 years older than himself.
Full of confidence from their Saturday display Aaron and George travelled to Burton on Sunday to take part in an ETTA ranking tournament. Aaron was in impressive form to win his junior group and his quarter and semi finals before being edged out in five games in the final. Playing in the cadet (u15) and u13 competitions George was unlucky to draw the no1 seeds in both group stage matches. However George had a number of good wins against higher ranked players before falling to the no2 seed Jac Jenkins of Wales in the semi finals.
The Coventry Association have also entered a team in the National Cadet (u15) League played in Burton. The very young team of George Allison (12), Sam Coombes (12) and Peter Richards (12) had a very good start in their first session winning three of their five matches only being beaten by two very experienced teams. Coventry no1 George lead from the front with 8 wins from ten matches, ably supported by Sam (6 wins) and Peter (4 wins), both earning their England rankings.
In the Midland League, Coventry Veterans (over 40) played their first match in Division two after promotion last year. Playing a strong Derby team the Coventry players of Paul Calloway (2 wins), John Ludford (1 win) and Richard Jardim (1 win) were just edged out 4-6. The next match will be against Tamworth and will herald the return of the Coventry no1 Andy Woodcock,