Can you imagine a player flying back, at their own expense, from Japan to England, just to play a few games of ping for their County. It just wouldn't happen. But that is exactly what Kaori Saijo did for London Progress at the weekend in order that the club could challenge for honours in the Women's British League. The results did not go our way and London Progress had to settle for second spot and consequently must congratulate DML Woolwell on another British League triumph. They were just too good over the whole season. But Egle Adomelyte, Aparna Narendran and Kaori did their very best, beating Leeds 4-2 and Cippenham 6-0 before again succumbing to DML Woolwell 4 sets to 2 in the very last match of the tournament.
Can you imagine any player in England going to work on a freezing cold Sunday at 7am in the morning and returning to work at 4pm in the afternoon and playing a County match in between.It just wouldn't happen. But that's exactly what did happen this Sunday when Jason Sugrue turned out for his club, London Progress, in an endeavour to help his club win an eighth consecutive British League title. And what a contribution he made on Sunday, winning three out of his four matches and his only loss being to Gareth Herbert 11- 8 in the fifth.Congratulations must go to Ellenborough for forcing the draw, and to be honest, they might consider themselves unlucky not to have taken both points. Gary Tendler's win against Marco Essomba was particularly spectacular. With second place Darlington losing to third placed Ormesby 5-3, ironically London Progress find themselves in an even better position at the end of the day's play than they were at the beginning. London Progress lead the field by four points with just four matches to play.
The weekend results may not have been perfect for Progress but who can fault the club spirit. Kaori and Jason were just two fine examples of what has become a regular feature of life at London Progress.
And the heroics are not just confined to the table. Bruce Fegredo, Naran Narendran and Anthony Small, just three of an army of behind-the-scenes heroes, spent many hours at the weekend working to ensure that the Progress machine rolled on smoothly. Bruce Fegredo spent his entire Saturday computerizing the results of the West London National Junior League, where incidentally, London Progress lead Division 1 by 5 points despite being beaten for the first time this season by Hillingdon TTC. Naren Narendran made the return journey to Widness single-handedly for the Women's British League thus allowing the top Progress girls the chance to compete for the top honours. And of course, we should not forget to mention Club Chairman and Webmaster, Anthony Small for the endless hours he commits to the club in order to make the Progress Website the best TT website in the country.
