England National Masters Tournament 2019

 At the 2019 England National Masters tournament in Hatfield, Kerry Mullen played in the O55 WS and finished as runner-up to Linda Wood (Derbyshire). 

 James Buckle played in the O60 XD with Anne Bridge (Surrey).  They beat a good pair from France and then had a close 3 set match against Karsten Meier (Denmark) &  Marie-Luise Schulta-Jansen (Germany) to reach the quarter-final where they  were beaten by a Scottish pair, Dan Travers & Christine Black who ended as World  runners-up.

James also played in the O60 MD with Gene Joiner (Avon).  They beat a pair from Malaysia comfortable and then a pair from Sweden to reach the round of 16 and were beaten by a Scottish/Denmark pair, Dan Travers & Jesper Helladie who also finished as World Champions.  Tough opposition in both competitions!

In the O50 WD Kerry Mullen played with Di Hufflett (Worcestershire).  After a bye in the 1st round they came up against a strong pair from Denmark & lost 14 7 16.  Kerry also played in the O55 WS and was beaten by Jill Smith (Scotland) in the 2nd round. 

Launa Eyles played in all 3 O55 tournaments and had a tough draw in all of them.  Despite valient efforts she lost in the round of 32 in all 3 tournaments.

Kerry Mullen travelled to Barkingside for the Essex Masters in March 2019.

She won the O55WS fairly comfortably with Sue Tooke (Hampshire).

In the WD she was partnered as a scratch pair with Cynthia Webbe (Bedfordshire) and finished as runners- up.

The McCoig Trophy is an annual International match between, generally, the England Nationals Masters Champions & a select team from Scotland.

Launa Eyles & Gene Joyner (Avon) won the England Nationals in December so were selected to represent the England at York in March, 2019.  Held at the historic Railway Institute the event was excellent.  Starting with team photographs, followed by very competitive matches before a team lunch & medal presentations.  Launa & Gene lost a very close match against one of the strongest Scottish pairs playing that day.  Overall England Masters won 23-6

James Buckle played at the Yorkshire Masters tournament in March 2019 in the XD with Anne Bridge (Surrey).

On an excellent day they beat the No 1 pair in their box & won through to the semi-finals which they won convincingly before winning in the final, again, convincingly.  Congratulations O60 XD winners!

The Hampshire Masters 2019 was played at Winchester in 2019.

In a reasonably strong O55 WD round robin group they finished as runner up to Cathy Bargh (Sussex) & Viv Gillard (Essex) – an excellent and very strong pair

To celebrate the 125th Anniversary of Badminton Ireland the inaugural ‘Graded International’ was held in Dublin.

Each Country (England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland) put out a team based around Player Grading in an attempt to get some even competition between countries with vastly different population sizes.

The England Graded team included two Somerset Masters players – Cath Wheller & Kerry Mullen.

Cath Wheller played with Ioana Platts-Mills (Kent) & they had an excellent day winning all of their matches.

Their Grade team won their competition and medals & pennants were awarded to the team.

Kerry Mullen was also selected to play in the Graded International.

She played in all of her Grade matches in WD with Sue Tooke (Hampshire) and was successful in all of them.