Fifth Division looking to conquer the Watkinson Trophy
It was cup week in the Master Lock and Safe Southport and District Badminton League. While the opening rounds of the Shield’s began, the main attraction was the third round of the Watkinson Trophy. Sixteen teams were fighting for eight places into the quarter-finals and it seems the fifth division is likely to produce this years winner.
It began at King George V College where West End Park 4 managed to overcome a 140 handicap to edge out Tarleton 5 from the seventh division 391-374. The fifth division leaders will face off with division rivals Woodvale 6 as they were involved in another tight encounter. Despite battling with a 32 points handicap against Southsands 6, it did not affect the result as Woodvale prevailed 392-372.
Further success came from West End Park, this time at Southport College where their third team overcoming a stiff challenge from the very dangerous Victoria Hall. With an incredible handicap of 321 points, the fourth division side exceeded their expectations and pulled it off to win by 70 points. Next up for them will be Ormskirk. The third division side has kept their good league form going with a comfortable 400-358 win over seventh division strugglers Formby Methodist 3 with their opponents having a 280 point advantage.
The bottom half of the draw sees the first division’s only representative in the quarters as Burscough Pioneers battled hard to defeat high-flying Woodvale 4. The third division side could not meet to the league’s projected handicap of 120 as they went down 400-351.
Burscough Pioneers’ next match sees them with a much tougher task as they are likely to be faced with a much larger handicap against the third and final fifth division side Southport 6 who made of the most of a 177 handicap as they pushed fourth division Hesketh Bank to make it a close and therefore end up as easy winners.
Despite this being a handicapped tournament, there was a huge upset as bottom division team Formby Methodist 2 did not need their 32 handicap advantage over Southsands 8 as they won 415-264. Even without the handicap, they would have easily beaten the sixth division team by more than 100 points.
Booking the final spot was Southport’s seventh team who narrowly defeated seventh division side Hesketh Bank 3 367-352 which included a 73 handicap against them.
It is back to the league now for a couple of weeks before it is quarter finals time and the confirmation of which four teams will be one step close to the final will be determined.
