Braintree League: Is it time for an underdog to rise?

September 23, 2025 | Ron Fosker

Could the Braintree Table Tennis League be about to have its Leicester City moment?

A championship that has been won by only three clubs – a Netts, Rayne and Liberal – in the last 15 years looks wide open this season with Sudbury Nomads quite definitely in the mix.

Hit by uncertainties over availability, Netts have decided to amalgamate last seasonâ€s A and B teams, with title winners Paul Davison, James Hicks and Andy Holmes sharing the limelight with at least three other players. They have also lost the services of menâ€s singles champion Gary Young, unbeaten in the league last year.

Rayne A, league winners in 2024 and runners-up last year as well as the six years before their title win, have suffered even more seriously. All three of last yearâ€s team, Paul Lucas, Adam Buxton and Maria Boulton, are unavailable although Buxton has not ruled out a comeback later in the season.

All that means that eyes can turn to the team who finished third last season.

The Leicester parallel may not be strictly accurate as Nomads have been adding players and climbing gradually over the last few years rather than emerging out of the blue.

Ken Lewis joined in 2018 and Karl Baldwin in 2020. They were joined by Aron Jordan for a few matches in 2023-24 and more regularly last season.

They rose from seventh to fourth to third before winning the division two title in 2023 and have then finished seventh and third in division one.

This yearâ€s team will have the backing of Natalie Dodd and Richard Fifield, who both joined the club part way through last season in divisions two and three respectively and quickly showed that they belonged in a higher sphere.

Much will depend on how Netts A choose to rotate their players but itâ€s clear that their title defence is littered with more potential pitfalls than before.

Like Netts, Liberal are also dropping a team by amalgamating last yearâ€s three division one teams into two. The chances of their B team repeating their fourth place, therefore, is slim.

Fifth-placed Black Notley B (now A), Rayne B (also now A), Liberal A and Rayne C are more or less unchanged while Black Notleyâ€s A team of Chris Parr, Sean Clift and Adam Clift have transferred en bloc to Earls Colne and will form Netts†B team.

Notley retain two teams in the top division by bringing together Rev Matthews, 86 per cent in division two last season, with Neil Freeman and Paul Nicol, plus the returning former menâ€s singles champion Steve Kerns, back in action after a hip operation.

The final place is taken by Sudburyâ€s B team, the Wanderers, who romped away with division two last season by 40 points.

Last yearâ€s squad of Ian Shrubsole, Louise Hartshorn, Colin Moss and David Hitchen remain, with Dodd and Fifield also available to call on.

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