06/07/22: The Westway Summer Superleague reached a climax last night with the Stampede winning the Aston House derby against the Thoroughbreds and Riki Houlden cleaning up the individual honours.
This year's competition has featured six teams - Aston House Thoroughbreds, Aston House Stampede, Newbury HA1, Westway Warriors, Emanuel Wanderers and Highgate - battling it out, first in a round robin format then in a series of play-off matches.
Week Seven saw the competition reach a conclusion with the two Aston House teams facing off in the final and Highgate and Newbury HA1 battling it out for third place. The group stage match between the two teams had been a classic, ending in a 3-3 draw and much depended on team availability and selection. The Thoroughbreds found themselves without star player Noah Caplin as well as key lieutenants Sahil Shah and Karen Hird, although they did have Alex Abrahams at the top of the order and franchise supremo Spencer Chapman donning the gloves at number four, with Stephen Thatcher and Nick Choustikov completing the line-up. The Stampede struck both lucky and unlucky in the build up - the problem of fitting five into four players was solved by the late withdrawal of Tom McCahon, who was forced to spend the evening in police custody*, but it also meant that Nathan Turnbull, Nick Shaw and Matt Chinery all had to shuffle up a place in the order. The Stampede held the trump card, however, in the presence of Riki Houlden, who has dominated the competition from start to finish, winning the golden gloves by a huge margin and leaving all comers in his wake in the MVP race having recorded a perfect season of 18 wins from 18 games leading up to the final. The Thoroughbreds were up against it from the start, therefore, but they put up some spirited resistance, running the Stampede close in several of the matches but were untlimately unable to prevent AHS romping to a 6-0 win to claim the title and the opportunity to lose yet another trophy before next year's tournament.
The 3rd/4th place match was considerably closer and turned into one of the matches of the tournament. Remarkably, Newbury HA1 managed to win all four matches in the first two rotations, despite Highgate scores of 11,13, 10 and 13, giving them an unassailable lead before the final two matches were shared.
This has been an excellent edition of the WSSL and it's been great to have it back after two Covid hit years. Hopefully it will back again next year, bigger and better than ever!
Thanks go to Dan Thackeray for masterminding the whole operation and to the other team captains - Spencer Chapman, Emily Scoones, Will Thomas and Mike Till - for their excellent organisation (full teams were put out for every single match of the competition!) and for ensuring that the matches were all played in the right spirit from start to finish.
*on the right side of the law, it should be noted
League Table
| P | W | D | L | Points | |
| Aston House Stampede | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 26 |
| Aston House Thoroughbreds | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 25 |
| Highgate | 5 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 18 |
| Newbury HA1 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 8 |
| Emanuel Wanderers | 5 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 6 |
| Westway Warriors | 5 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 5 |
Results
Week Seven
Final
Aston House Stampede (R.Houlden, N.Turnbull, N.Shaw, M.Chinery) beat Aston House Thoroughbreds (A.Abrahams, S.Thatcher, N.Choustikov, S.Chapman) 6-0
3rd/4th
Newbury HA1 (O.Denby, R.Tyler, W.Thomas, P.Holland) beat Highgate (Ab.Bhattacharya, Ar.Bhattacharya, D.Lioubimov, E.Scoones) 5-1
Week Six
Semi-Finals
Aston House Stampede (R.Houlden, T.McCahon, N.Turnbull, N.Shaw) beat Newbury HA1 (R.Tyler, W.Seath, O.Avery, J.Hopkins) 6-0
Aston House Thoroughbreds (A.Abrahams, S.Shah, K.Hird, S.Thatcher) beat Highgate (O.Hallam, J.Ledigo, R.Morgan, E.Scoones) 5-1
5th/6th Play-Off
Westway Warriors (A.Field, F.Lebon, T.Campbell, C.Wheeler) beat Emanuel Wanderers (F.Prickett, J.Hammond, C.Nkwocha, T.Bush) 5-1
Final (Tuesday 5th July)
Aston House Stampede v Aston House Thoroughbreds
3rd/4th Play-Off (Tuesday 5th July)
Newbury HA1 v Highgate
Week Five
Aston House Thoroughbreds (N.Caplin, K.Hird, S.Thatcher, N.Choustikov) beat Westway Warriors (A.Field, F.Lebon, T.Campbell, C.Wheeler) 6-0
Newbury HA1 (O.Denby, O.Avery, W.Thomas, P.Holland) beat Emanuel Wanderers (F.Prickett, C.Lumbard, S.Kelly, M.Till) 4-2
Aston House Stampede (R.Houlden, T.McCahon, M.Chinery, N.Shaw) beat Highgate (O.Hallam, Ar.Bhattacharya, Ab.Bhattacharya, D.Lioubimov) 5-1
Week Four
Aston House Thoroughbreds (Sahil Shah, K.Hird, S.Thatcher, S.Chapman) beat Emanuel Wanderers (C.Nkwocha, R.Swallow, Saajan Shah, T.Bush) 6-0
Highgate (O.Hallam, Ab.Bhattacharya, D.Lioubimov, R.Morgan) beat Newbury HA1 (W.Seath, W.Thomas, P.Holland, J.Hopkins) 5-1
Aston House Stampede (R.Houlden, T.McCahon, N.Turnbull, M.Chinery) beat Westway Warriors (P.Wilkinson, C.Wheeler, M.Gwynne, J.Caplin) 6-0
Week Three
Aston House Stampede (R.Houlden, N.Turnbull, N.Shaw, C.Austin) beat Newbury HA1 (M.de Souza Girao, W.Seath, J.Hopkins, O.Avery) 6-0
Emanuel Wanderers (F.Prickett, S.Kelly, C.Nkwocha, T.Bush) beat Westway Warriors (A.Field, D.McCahon, C.Wheeler, N.Lilienthal) 4-2
Aston House Thoroughbreds (N.Caplin, A.Abrahams, S.Shah, K.Hird) beat Highgate (J.Marks, D.Lioubimov, Ar.Bhattacharya, Ab.Bhattacharya) 4-2
Week Two
Highgate (O.Hallam, R.Morgan, J.Ledigo, E.Scoones) beat Emanuel Wanderers (J.Hammond, S.Kelly, M.Till, A.Lewthwaite) 6-0
Aston House Stampede (R.Houlden, N.Turnbull, N.Shaw, M.Chinery) drew with Aston House Thoroughbreds (N.Caplin, A.Abrahams, S.Shah, K.Hird) 3-3
Westway Warriors (A.Field, P.Wilkinson, M.Gwynne, D.McCahon) drew with Newbury HA1 (W.Seath, W.Thomas, P.Holland, O.Avery) 3-3
Week One
Aston House Stampede (R.Houlden, T.McCahon, M.Chinery, B.Merrett) beat Emanuel Wanderers (J.Reynolds, J.Hammond, T.Bush, R.Swallow) 6-0
Highgate (Ab.Bhattacharya, J.Ledigo, E.Scoones, D.Lioubimov) beat Westway Warriors (F.Lebon, A.Field, P.Griffiths, D.Thackeray) 4-2
Aston House Thoroughbreds (N.Caplin, K.Hird, S.Thatcher, N.Choustikov) beat Newbury HA1 (M.de Souza Girao, R.Tyler, J.Hopkins, O.Avery) 6-0
MVP Race Final Scores
Riki Houlden 315
Karen Hird 250
Matt Chinery 211
Nathan Turnbull 209
Nick Shaw 203
Stephen Thatcher 195
Adam Field 188
Tom McCahon 180
Dan Lioubimov 176
Abhishek Bhattacharya 169
Noah Caplin 164
Emily Scoones 163
Alex Abrahams 150
Will Thomas 144
Paul Holland 140
Sahil Shah 137
Oli Hallam 131
Nick Choustikov 112
Ollie Avery 107
Ralph Morgan 107
Jack Ledigo 104
Frank Lebon 101
Chris Wheeler 97
Fred Prickett 94
Toby Bush 91
Golden Gloves (Shots in the Hole)
Riki Houlden 20
Adam Field 13
Matt Chinery 7
Fred Prickett 6
Karen Hird 5
Sahil Shah 5
Stephen Thatcher 5
Abhishek Bhattacharya 4
Noah Caplin 4
Oli Hallam 4
Nathan Turnbull 4
Ollie Avery 3
Nick Shaw 3
Will Thomas 3
Chris Wheeler 3
Alex Abrahams 2
Oskar Denby 2
Mark Gwynne 2
James Hammond 2
Stephen Kelly 2
Chiedo Nkwocha 2