Cambridge University Sports Centre
Sunday, 18th May 2025
A historic day for Andy Pringle and Morgan Spillane, who faced each other in the final of the Over 55s championship, with Andy there claiming his first Singles title. They then went on together to win their third successive Doubles title.
Andy did it the hard way, beating former champion Ian Jackson in the quarters, much-fancied John Minta, only recently runner-up in the Veterans Championship, in the semi-final, and then, in the final, his partner and another former champion, Morgan Spillane, who had suffered a strength-sapping semi-final against defending champion Dave Fox.
There were a number of good matches in the Plate but Sam Roberts deservedly got his name on the Salver for the first time, overcoming Ian Jackson and Richard Christie to do so.
There were 4 fancied pairs in the Doubles, and organiser Brian Kirk got the groups right as those four pairs emerged to contest the semi-finals. There was a titanic battle in one, where Harvey Bishop & Tom Kiggell, in their first appearance, very very nearly got the better of defending champions Pringle & Spillane. In the final, first-time competitors Hamish Buchanan & John Minta found Morgan’s powerful left-handed onslaught difficult to negate and made rather more errors than they would have liked. Andy & Morgan thus walked away with a hat-trick of titles. Can they next year match David Hebblethwaite & Geoff Prigmore’s 4 in a row, which kicked off this competition from 1988/89?
Singles
Quarter-finals: D Fox bt R Christie 15-7; M Spillane bt S Roberts 15-4; A Pringle bt I Jackson 15-4; J Minta bt B Baral 15-4
Semi-finals: Spillane bt Fox 16-14; Pringle bt Minta 15-7
Final: Pringle bt Spillane 15-2
Plate: 1st S Roberts 33 pts; 2nd I Jackson 28 pts; 3rd R Christie 25 pts; 4th B Baral 7 pts
Doubles
Group A: 1st H Buchanan & J Minta 30 pts; 2nd H Bishop & T Kiggell 18 pts; 3rd B Baral & I Jackson 18 pts
Group B: 1st A Pringle & M Spillane 30 pts; 2nd D Fox & S Roberts 23 pts; 3rd R Christie & J Stubbs 8 pts
Semi-finals: Buchanan & Minta bt Fox & Roberts 15-2; Pringle & Spillane bt Bishop & Kiggell 16-14
Final: Pringle & Spillane bt Buchanan & Minta 15-8
Plate: Baral & Jackson bt Kirby & Kirk 15-5; bt Christie & Stubbs 15-10
First time Singles champion Andy Pringle
Action from the final: Morgan Spillane serving
Victory for Andy
Singles Plate winner Sam Roberts
The Singles group
A hat-trick in the Doubles for Spillane & Pringle
Doubles finalists Hamish, Morgan, Andy and John
Plate finalists Jeremy, Ian, Bhaswar and Richard
The Plate goes to Baral & Jackson
The Doubles medallists
The battle of the first-timers
A first Plate Doubles title for Bhaswar and Ian
So ends the day’s play