Individual handicap competition. One game to 42 points.

There were 22 entries this year. The players were split into 5 groups. The group stages were played on 18^th, 19^th, 20^th and 21^st September 2006 at various venues. The group winners advanced to the finals night on Friday 22^nd September 2006 at York RI. Thanks to Tim Smith for organising the competition.

Finals night

Report by Tim Smith

Bootham’s Jon Wooldridge won this year’s Bagshaw trophy after a roller-coaster finals evening at the Railway Institute. The other 4 contestants playing in the finals were John Stokes of Sessions, Andy Grayson, new player Richard Lillie and, in his third consecutive finals evening, Richard Church – all from York RI. The evening began with a round robin section, with many of the matches being close run affairs, advantage switching from one player to the other throughout. At the end of the round robin, Wooldridge topped the group, with Stokes, Grayson and Church tied on 2 wins apiece going forward to play off for the other grand final place. Two desperately tight encounters followed. Church was pipped by Stokes, who in turn was narrowly edged out by Grayson. And so the grand final was set up. Earlier in the round robin section, Wooldridge had the better of Grayson by a meagre 2 points, and a close game was awaited. Unfortunately for Grayson, Wooldridge got on top of his steady-away topspin defence early on, blocking and hitting with precision to take it by 6 clear points. Well done and many thanks for another well supported Bagshaw to all involved and congratulations to finalist Richard Lillie for doing so well, particularly as he hadn’t played a competitive match before this week.