We had to be patient but our first team finally laid its hands upon a top prize in the form of the Thames Valley Knock-Out Trophy in 2014. The last and only other time we won this trophy was in 2005. However on that occasion our opponents in the final, Slough, decided to not play the Final and so it was won by default!

This time around we were made to work a lot harder! In the first round, away to Meadhurst (a third division team), we managed a comfortable 5-1 victory. Sadly we did not get to play the second round match at home against Staines (another third division team) as they could not raise a team, so we were awarded a walkover. We then found ourselves in the semi-finals drawn away from home against Richmond. Richmond had been champions of Division 1 the year before and were on their way to match that achievement again in 2014. They were also the Knock-Out Trophy holders. It simply does not get tougher than that. Our 3.5-2.5 win in that match was a super achievement and, after such a result, we really did deserve to win the Trophy.

It was our old buddies Kingston, from just down the road, who contested the Final on 25th June 2014 against us at our place. We ran out 5-1 winners to claim the Trophy.

As such things don't come around that often the team captain, Paul Shepherd, hosted a celebration for all club members, their partners and children at his place during the summer. The weather was kind to us and there was a lot of fun to be had as games of garden chess were interspersed with Connect4, croquet and mini-tennis (Sorry, Malcolm, I am still searching for the blue croquet ball!). In amongst the games, eating, drinking and socialising was the opportunity for a little presentation of individual trophies to the players present who had played in our cup run: Mark Josse, Chris Brisoe, Ian Henderson, Angus James, Steve Kearney, Koby Kalavannan and Paul Shepherd. Big congratulations too to the other two players who played but could not make the party but got their trophies later: Nick Pelling and Steven Jones.