The annual triangular Todmorden Shield was played for in glorious sunshine at Castletown Lawn Tennis Club last weekend.

The event featured teams representing Castletown, Albany and Ramsey.

Each side consisted of two men’s and two women’s pairs, with all men’s pairs playing each other and all women’s pairs playing each other, therefore each pair played a total of four sets.

On the women’s side, unfortunately Ramsey could only field one pair but Edith Van Genuchten and Helen Brooks fought hard and gained six valuable points.

The two Castletown pairs of Justine Torry and Lucy Kerr plus Nic Skillicorn and Amanda Munro picked up a respectable 28 points between them.

The Albany women’s contingent of Charlotte Clarke, Michaela Duchonova, Aalish Kelly and Sarah Long proved too strong though, not dropping a single game between them and therefore coming out with the maximum 48 points.

In the men’s section, Ramsey’s Sean Drewry and Orry Farnworth battled hard to keep their team in contention and came out with the maximum 24 points.

Ramsey’s Neri Gricevicius and Jon Gower-Jackson didn’t fare quite so well, ending up on seven points.

Castletown’s pairings of Rob Mason and Neil Ronan plus Jonny Weir and Jos Woolford fared similarly to the Castletown women, emerging with a total of 25 points.

The Albany men held their own though, with Ian Watson and Garreth Roome gaining the team a valuable 18 points while Marc Chinn and AJ Go dropped only one game on their way to taking 23 points.

With all the scores added up, it left Ramsey on 37, Castletown on 53 and Albany on 89.

The shield was collected by Ian Watson as captain of the Albany team, who thanked Neil Ronan for his running of the tournament and Castletown Lawn Tennis Club for their hospitality.

Next year the Todmorden Shield will be hosted by Ramsey.

NEIL RONAN