Back-To-Back Promotions for Senior County First Team

Gloucestershire first team travelled to Milton Keynes to compete in the Division 1 playoffs with the hope of gaining promotion to the Championship. The absence of doubles player Mike Haywood who holds a perfect regular season record was a blow to the team but confidence was still high amongst the players.

Having been promoted the previous season to Division 1 the aim was to consolidate and avoid relegation, but the squad surpassed all expectations eventually finishing 2^nd behind Lanarkshire and booking a spot in the May playoffs. Joining them from the southern division was Suffolk and Hertfordshire who were sure to provide stiff competition.

Gloucestershire started their promotion challenge against Division 1 South champions Suffolk. The singles went largely as expected except for a slight upset for Kerry Mullen who battled out a 3-set win. The second women’s singles spot has been shared this year by Mullen and Chelsey Salt who have done the job despite not particularly enjoying singles, but their performances and results have been vital for the team. A 3-2 lead going into the doubles would stand strong throughout the doubles with both the men’s and women’s doubles shared between the two teams setting up a grandstand finish for the mixed doubles. Both were nervy encounters going the distance and true to form the games were split resulting in a 6-5 Gloucestershire win. A solid start and performances to build on for the afternoon match against Hertfordshire.

A largely unchanged team went into the afternoon match with lots of confidence and this showed in the singles. Gloucestershire taking a 5-0 lead headed by the men of Jamie Pearcy, Chris Hotchen and Dale Turner and followed up with wins from Sanskriti Chhabra and Chelsey Salt. The doubles went similarly well with just a minor blip in the men’s doubles with Hotchen and Pearcy losing out to a strong Hertfordshire pair but still putting in a promising performance. With every game holding value towards the final table it was important to put a strong mixed performance in even though the tie was won at 8-1. Again the mixed were tight affairs with Nicola Gresty and Jamie Pearcy grinding out a 3-set win whilst Mullen and Ian Woolway eventually missed out 23-21 in a final set decider. The afternoons performance showed everyone what the team was about with every player contributing towards a potentially promotion deciding result. It also set up a super Sunday clash against playoff leaders Lanarkshire.  

After a relatively early night Gloucestershire headed back to the National Badminton Centre bright and early to prepare the bodies for one final push towards promotion. The day started with two high quality singles matches. Pearcy just missing out on a perfect men’s singles season but his performances to get the team off to a winning start in every match up until now have been invaluable. Hotchen produced a solid display of patient badminton to grind out a straight set win and give us a 2-1 lead with the help of Lanarkshire forfeiting the third singles match. Women’s singles were always going to be very tricky and despite two valiant performances Gloucestershire would come out of the singles down 3-2. Gloucestershire knew another couple of points would secure promotion and with the level doubles being shared between the two teams’ promotion was secured. Chhabra and Gresty delivering a candidate for performance of the weekend taking down a strong Lanarkshire partnership. With the pressure now off the team could enjoy the final mixed doubles. Despite defeat in both and a final score of 7-4 to Lanarkshire the team had delivered yet again and secured promotion.

A massive well done to every player contributing to the team not just in the playoffs but throughout the regular season and a big thank you to all supporters who made the trip to Milton Keynes. Next year will be even tougher in the Championship but there is no doubt this team still has further room for improvement.

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