The seventies started with one of the tightest title races in the league’s history when Crittall A beat College A by just one set. Both had 55 points from 16 matches but Crittall’s sets record was 134-58 compared with College’s 133-59.
To win the title Crittall could drop only six sets over their last three matches. They beat both Silver End A and Cressing A 10-2 but that left them with the task of producing the same scoreline against Shalford A, whose line-up included the unbeaten Mike Musson.
But in Tony Guy, Crittall had the man for the occasion. In a dry run for his subsequent victory in the men’s singles final, Guy managed what no one else had achieved that season and found a way through the powerful Musson to give his team the 10-2 win they needed.
It was the fourth successive title for the Crittall combination of Guy, Dave Atterbury and Len Woolmer and they went on to make it a six in a row, a record yet to be beaten, after adding both Rob Milne and Ron Fosker to their squad for their final two successes. It was the last of their eleven titles.
Milne set the trend for players from outside the area joining the league and it was two such players who denied Crittall a seventh successive title. Colin Hughes and Charlie Wheeler from Chelmsford joined Witham’s Dave Willoughby to bring Crittall Witham their only title.
The following season, 1975, offered a sign of things to come when a team called Colne Engaine won their first league title. Allowing for a couple of name changes, it was to be the first of 13 titles.
The club had been formed by Peter Hill, who ran it for many years with considerable enthusiasm and success, not only for the first team but for the many junior players that he introduced to the game and coached to a high standard – both in his club role and as the league coaching secretary over four separate periods.
He was joined by Ron Martin and Charles Wrigglesworth, a combination that had come together towards the end of the previous season. They held off Crittall A where Ron Cuddeford had joined Milne and Woolmer, and College A’s Fred Sheldrake, Neil Beckett, Ron Fosker and John Tay-Ahenakwa, who scored only three points out of eight in their final two matches to fall two points short.
The next year marked the debut of another of the league’s most influential players. Tay-Ahenakwa had left the area and in his place College recruited former Hertfordshire No.2 Derek Wood, who had just moved to Witham.
And this year College A got it right – but only just. In another of those storybook finishes, the league went into its final match with no fewer than three teams still able to take the title. College travelled to Hedingham needing to win 10-2 to take the title. Hedingham needed only to win 7-5 to take the title themselves while a draw or a College win by less than 10-2 would have given the title to Colne A.
The drama continued on the evening when Sheldrake failed to turn up on time and arrived to find Hedingham had claimed the first set. But they only added one more victory during the evening and College came away with their required 10-2 win.
The team broke up after that season, Wood and Beckett moving over to Bramston where they were joined by Mick Borshell, a former Herts colleague of Wood’s, who had also moved to the area, plus Tom Elder, who had played in the league in the sixties, and Ken Jackson. They held off a challenge from the new-look Colne A of Martin, Milne, Wheeler, Martin Bawden and a 16-year-old Terry Dowsett.
But only for one season. Bramston’s A team moved en bloc to form Witham FC A for 1977-78 but they faced a markedly stronger Colne A team. They had recruited former Essex junior Rob Hellaby, who had just moved into the area, and rising star Kevin Howard, from Braintree Youth Centre. In addition, Dowsett had added a new dimension to his game. After losing twice to Witham in his second match of the season, he then won 47 sets on the trot.
Colne’s 9-3 win over Witham in that match effectively settled the title race. It was a title they were to hold for the next four years. Dowsett, Milne and Howard were the mainstays, with John Andrews joining in 1980 and Ian Graham in 1981.
The new club at Witham FC was to remain in existence for the next 23 years. For the first eleven years of that existence, the A team finished in the top two in the league, for four years behind Colne and in 1982 they took over at the top.
It was during their four years in second place that they were involved in perhaps the tightest title race ever. Witham went into their final match with Colne needing only to draw to ensure they could not be overtaken. Colne needed to win 7-5 or better.
The match was nip and tuck all the way until it reached 6-5 to Colne, leaving them needing the final doubles to win. This went to three games and eventually to 20-19 in the third before Colne clinched the final point.
