News

Welcome to the Cambridgeshire Badminton Association (Cambs BA), a County association affiliated to Badminton England.

Cambridgeshire Badminton Association is dedicated to the development and promotion of badminton throughout the whole of Cambridgeshire.  The county consists of around 30 affiliated clubs as well as hosting Junior, Senior and Masters teams playing in the Inter-County Championships.

This web site is designed to enable Cambridgeshire Badminton Association to promote badminton through providing news and information on local, County and national badminton. Please visit this web site regularly to keep abreast of all the latest developments.

Masters Over 50's Match Reports

Sunday 24/1/16, Home v Norfolk.

Team - Martin Smith, Martyn Clark, John Harvey, Wilf Janssen, Angela Sharman, Dianne Baker, Helen Taylor and Carol Salmon.

Mens

Cambs won 3 out of 4 mens rubbers, with Martin and Martyn teaming up to beat the first Norfolk pair in a 3 setter 22-24, 21-14 and 21-16 and a comfortable win against their second pair.   Wilf and John had two close games, beating the firsts 21-18 and 23-21, and lost to the seconds 17 and 19.

Ladies

Angela and Di lost to the first pair but beat the seconds to 12 and 7. 
Helen and Carol couldn't quite convert a three setter but lost 16-21, 21-19, 16-21, could have gone either way!!

Mixed

Martyn Clark and Di Baker played as first mixed and won their gmae to 19 and 15.

Wilf and Helen played second and after a good first end winning 21-19 couldn't quite manage to win losing to 14 and 13 in the second and third ends.

Martin Smith and Angela Sharman went in as thirds winning another three setter 21-16 19-21, 21-17.

This left John Harvey and Carol Salmon with the responsibility of bringing home the win or making it a draw. They came up against a strong third pair and found it hard to get into their stride finally losing to 7 and 15.

This made it a 6-6 draw, with 14 games each. We finally lost out by 2 points 504-506.

It was a very good game played in good spirits which all pairings felt they could/should have won it for us.

An excellent result and turnaround from a 10-2 loss at their end.

Well Played Team.

Sunday 31/1/16, Away v Suffolk

Team - Martin Smith, Martyn Clark, John Harvey, Wilf Janssen, Angela Sharman, Dianne Baker, Helen Taylor, and Xin Cheng.

Mens

Martin and Martyn lost a close game 17 and 18 to the first pair, but felt it could have gone either way, and beat the seconds to 19 and 18.

Wilf and John narrowly lost to the seconds, 16 and 18. But managed to take an end of the firsts eventually losing 16-21 21-15 15-21.

Ladies

Pairings were Angela and Di  and Helen and Xin. Both pairs suffered a heavy defeat to a strong first ladies pair. And both had a better game against their second pair with Angela and Di managing to take an end off them.

Mixed

We didn't manage to win any mixed rubbers, with only Wilf and Helen as second mixed managing to take an end.

All in all a somewhat disappointing outing where we all feel we could/should have done better. Most if not all of the games played were closer than the scorelines suggest.

Many Thanks Team, especially Wilf for standing in for John Pickering who had to pull out due to illness on Saturday.

Martin Smith
Captain.

Cambs 3 win 1 lose 2 in difficult, but very fun final weekend!

Hey folks, Simon Parker here reporting for Cambs3's last weekend! So much to tell, but will try to keep it as brief as possible! Campbell stolen by the 2s and Rachel unable to play, Mike and Alison subbed in.

Lost 6-5 to northants2
Lost the first 6 games (all the singles and 1 mens), won the next 5. Lots of close ends but we were well beaten in the singles. 10-minute highly embarrassing score row in the middle of Me and Mike's men's (are we 19-16 up or 19-18 up?) Eventually settled on 19-17 and then won the last two points anyway rendering the whole thing completely pointless. Cringe. Good win for Ruth & Alison in the ladies in 3 close ends.

Lost 9-2 to Suffolk2
Very comfortably beaten in all of the singles except mine against their 3rd man which I managed to scrape. Lost all the rest except me and Mikes doubles which we won in three; won 21-10 in the last after a great piece of advice from Mike which really deconstructed them as a pair. Liz & Mike very nearly took their mixed but lost 21-18 in the 3rd - pretty good for a pair who had never played together before!

NOW THE FUN BEGINS

So the 2nds had TWO injuries on Saturday, which meant they took Alex and Tom (the only two players not staying overnight in Oakham!) for the Sunday. I then spent about 2 hours on the phone to various reserve men to see if anyone would make the trip. My first 10-15 players couldn't make it SLASH couldn't drive and weren't up for taking the train. I eventually managed to recruit Martin Crossley and Chris Parker to take the train up and play - I swear to god I'm not just being "that guy" and asking my brother/clubmate, I genuinely did ask everyone on the reserve list plus a few others!!!

Fresh from that stress, the remaining 7 of us went out for dinner and drinks, which was actually really good fun :)

On the Sunday, Martin and Chris managed to miss their stop (ahhhh!). Meaning Liz had to sit around for about an hour until they arrived in Peterborough to pick them up (THANKS LIZ!). Everyone was late. Negotiations with the opposition ensued but they were graceful, thankfully.

Won 6-5 Against Lincs2
Once again, we lost all of our singles (partly because all 3 of our normal singles men were taken by the bloody 2nd team at this point hehe) except Alison who took hers in two very tidy ends. We then won almost all of the remaining fixtures, including Chris & Bertie's mens and Martin/Kerry's Mixed. Alison and Ruth unfortunately struggled against a strong 2nd pair, but in the best viewed game of the season, Kerry and Mike won the very final game 28-26 sealing the win to rapturous applause and many-a high five!

A really fun season in the end and a really good atmosphere within the team throughout the weekend. I'm sad it's over now! Thanks to everyone that played for us over the season :)

U13s Victorious in First Friendly Match

Cambs' new U13 team

A new Cambs U13 team travelled to Northamptonshire on Sunday to play a friendly match against the Northants juniors.

With no Cambs U13 team in the Shires County League this season, or for the last few years, it was a momentous occasion for this group of players to get on the road and experience inter-County badminton.

In a superb result, the Cambs juniors secured a 12-8 victory.  With several players in the squad who still qualify as U11s, it was a very promising result from the team.

A team photograph, and the full match results sheet, is available in the Gallery section.

Thanks so much to new team managers Sue and Anil, and to the Northants squad for such a warm welcome.

Congratulations players!!  Hopefully this is the first taste of success leading to many future wins!

O50 Match report and ICC weekend roundup

Over 50's Away v Essex, Sunday 17th January

Team - Martin Smith, Martyn Clark, John Harvey, Peter Coleman, Angela Sharman, Dianne Baker, Carol Salmon, Xin Cheng.

We put up a spirited fight against a strong Essex team, but despite some close games were unable to convert any into a win.The final score of a 12-0 home win does not do justice to the games played on the day.

Well done and thanks to the team for their commitment and support. And a special thanks to our "super sub" Peter Coleman.

Round up of the ICC masters weekend for the over 50's team

Team - Martin Smith, Martyn Clark, John Harvey, John Pickering, Angela Sharman, Dianne Baker, Helen Taylor, Xin Cheng.

Following a late alteration we were pitted against Derbyshire, Notts, Norfolk and Shropshire, playing each team twice over the weekend and each rubber consisting of 2 games thus enabling a draw.

On Saturday we drew 2-2 with Shropshire, lost 3-1 to Norfolk, lost 2-0 to Notts with the other 2 games being a 1-1 draw and lost 3-0 to Derby, again with 1 match drawn.

After some fine food and entertainment on Saturday evening we were back on court "bright" and early, 9.00am on Sunday. We managed another 2-2 draw with Shropshire, bettered our score against Norfolk with a 2-2 draw, equalled our score of a 2-0 loss to Notts, and lost 4-0 to Derby.

Sadly we ended the weekend a close 5th with 3 points. Shropshire pipped us to 4th with 4 points, however we out performed them on rubbers, games and points, but their 1 win gave them the extra point.

All in all a good weekend with some good badminton and entertainment.

Many thanks to the team for their support.

Martin Smith, Captain

Match Report for Cambs Over 50's away v Herts, Sunday 22/11/15

Team: Martyn Clark, Martin Smith, Wilfried Janssen, Mark Talbot, Angela Sharman, Dianne Baker, Helen Taylor, Xin Cheng.

Mens doubles

Martyn Clark and Martn Smith, lost a close three ender against Herts 1st pair, 20-22, 21-18, 21-16, but beat their 2nd pair in two ends. 
Wilf and Mark won both of their games beating the 2nds in two ends and winning a tight three ender 23-25 to complete the double.

Ladies Doubles

Angela and Di and Helen and Xin had some good games with Angela and Di taking their 2nd pair to 3 ends. Unfortunately, despite battling hard were unable to convert any games to our advantage.

Mixed Doubles

Martyn and Di fought hard but lost in 2 ends.
Martin and Angela took a comfortable win in 2 ends.
Wilf and Xin had a tough fight with a 3 end win 23-21 14-21 18-21.
Mark and Helen were the last game on and a win from them would give us a draw. However, after a hard fight their scores were 15-21 21-17 25-23.

All in all a very good match in which any of our pairs could have taken us to a draw with 1 more win.

Final score 7-5 to Herts, 16-14 in games, but 548-552 on points.

Thank You and WELL PLAYED TEAM :-)

Martin Smith

Cambs 3 Win 1 Lose 1 In First Day's Fixtures

On Saturday 7th November Cambs3 went off for our first set of matches against Beds2 and Northants3. With all the teams now playing on the same day, any higher teams needing subs meant we would need sub players. We lost Rachel and Bertrand a few weeks in advance to higher call-ups. I then went off to Peterborough to practice with Liz earlier that week to try and get a partnership going and (with a healthy spoonful of irony) then rolled my ankle, so that ruled me out. Then, to really rub that in, Liz and Campbell were called up last minute to higher teams anyway - which left us scrambling a bit. Luckily we could get strong subs in for all but 1 of those spots – I’d run the reserves list dry and had asked at least 8 additional players but I just couldn’t find a last man, so I had to man up and play :) . No resentment directed at our higher teams though, that’s just the way it goes with this new format!

Beds2 were a tough bunch. They finished just below our 2nd team last year so was a bit of an ask for us to beat them. Tom was the only one to win his singles, though Alex had a very close 3ender. Kerry and Jacquie took their ladies, and Mike and I took our men's, but we lost the rest of the games resulting in an 8-3 loss.

The Northants3 game went a little better. They fielded a team with some strong juniors in which was good to see. Kevin also showed up to watch, but we twisted his arm to help bail Mike out of his singles, who was unpracticed having not known he was playing singles until the day before the match heh. All 5 singles games went our way in 2 ends, with some won to single digits! The levels followed suit, as cambs took all 4 games comfortably. Kerry had to play against her partner in the mixed – I don’t know if that made her play better or worse. Regardless, Kerry & Tom played well to win. The combination of straps and painkillers was really helping my ankle to I swapped in to play mixed instead of Thas who hadn’t quite gelled with Jacquie as we’d hoped having never played together before. Jacquie and I reunited our junior county partnership to success and won in 2 ends. Final overall score of 11-0 win!

All in all a really fun day with good games, a really sociable atmosphere, and a friendly team who helped support each other throughout. Massive thanks to all our subs, but particularly Jacquie who filled in at really late notice, won 3 /4 of her rubbers, and put up with me in the mixed :). Roll on December 12th!

(Simon Parker)

Over 50’s match reports: Norfolk & Suffolk

1/11/15 Away v Norfolk

Team – Martyn Clark, John Mallabar, Martin Smith, Wilfred Janssen, Angela Sharman, Helen Taylor, Carol Salmon, Xin Cheng.

A hard fought game against a strong Norfolk team resulted in a 10-2 home win to Norfolk.

Men’s doubles: Martyn and John, and Wilf and Martin put up a good fight against two strong Norfolk men’s pairs but were unable to convert some close games into a win.

Ladies doubles: Angela and Helen paired up to win one of their games, narrowly missing out 21-19 against the Norfolk 1st ladies pair. Carol and Xin had a similar game to the men’s pairs, putting up a good fight but were unable to gain an advantage.

Mixed Doubles: Three of the four draws went to 3 ends, but we were only able to convert one of these to a win, well done Wilf and Xin.

Final score was a 10-2 home win to Norfolk. All in all we had some good games but were outplayed on the day.

Well played team.

8/11/15 Home v Suffolk

Team – John Pickering, Wilfred Janssen, John Mallabar, Martin Smith, Angela Sharman, Dianne Baker, Helen Taylor, Xin Cheng.

Mens doubles: John P and Wilf had two 3 enders in their mens, beating the Suffolk 2nd pair and losing 21-17 in the 3rd against the 1st pair. John M and Martin had a close win against the Suffolk 2nds and lost to the 1st pair to 14 and 19.

Ladies Doubles: Both of our ladies pairs had close games against the Suffolk 2nd pair but were outplayed by the 1st pair. Angela and Di beat the 2nd pair and Helen and Xin lost a closely fought battle to 19 and 18.

Mixed Doubles: John P and Helen, John M and Di, Martin and Angela, Wilf and Xin. We all had some close games with Wilf and Xin being the only mixed pair to manage 3 ends.

Final Result was a 9-3 away win to Suffolk. Overall a good match played in good spirits, many thanks to all of the team.

Martin Smith
Captain