The Junior League has now concluded for this season. It was a reduced programme due to the uncertainties delivered by the pandemic. Never-the -less we were able to support two divisions. On occasion some teams were unable to field complete teams, so we allowed doubling up and players from other clubs to enable the fixtures to take place. The most positive aspect was the introduction of an 'unstructured event'. In this case we invited any younger players to come along and play singles and doubles against each other in a relatively random fashion. If players were waiting and a court available they played. We did record the results to find a way to award trophies. This is how it all worked out.

After the first round in December we had a good idea of how badly we had been hit by Covid. The senior divisional teams were so few that two divisions were all we could stage. In keeping with previous seasons we used the two rounds in 2022 as an accumulative result. In division 1 we had two very strong Wizards teams along with Shavington and Canute A who recognised the challenge in front of them. Wizards A were in turn quite a bit stronger than Wizards B. Wizards A record was spotless in that they did not drop a single game all season. They are worthy champions. In division 2 Alsager and Wizards C were the only teams able to attend both sessions. Crosses and Canute B came along to compete in round 2 but were unable to be represented in round 3. Only Alsager and Wizards C won matches. Wizards did overcome Alsager in round 3 but by then the damage was done and Alsager had a very strong position going into round 3. Despite Wizards winning the round 3 encounter, the reverse was true in round 2. Other results meant that Alsager ran out divisional champions, congratulations to them.

The unstructured events were recorded based on the teams the players represented and their success based on average points per game achieved given that we had varying numbers of players, some at both sessions, varying numbers of singles played to 9 points and varying numbers of doubles to 15 points. We were thus able to calculate an average points per game at club level by combining the individual scores. We had been able to segregate the players into one of two groups based on age and strength. In Group 1 Shavington came out on top edging out Nantwich and Alsager. They were rewarded with the division 3 trophy. In Group 2 the Alsager contingent were victorious over Crosses and Canute thus winning division 4.

All divisional results can be found on the web site, our thanks as always to Carl McGregor-Ogden for diligently compiling these.

The coaches and helpers were invaluable as always and our thanks to them for giving the competition a chance. We fervently hope for an improved situation next season.