On November 13th The Bedfordshire mens county side were in action in Ipswich against Lincolnshire and Suffolk. With Leinster having to withdraw from the competition it meant that we only had to finish above one of these sides to be in with a chance of promotion in March.

Having won our last three county matches and with the addition of world ranked Adil Maqbool to the side at number 1 our hopes were high of being able to continue this winning run.

Confidence was not misplaced as we ran out 5-0 winners in our first match against the hosts.

Gary Milner won a good match at number  5 string 3-1. Bruce St Leger was involved in the toughest battle of the afternoon at number 4 string as he ended up winning 3-2 despite picking up a hamstring injury late on in the match. There were fairly comfortable wins for Nick Lavery at 3 and Adil Maqbool at 1 - both winning 3-0. After a shaky start Steve Davies then wrapped things up with a 3-1 win at number 2 seed.

The second match against Lincolnshire was a tougher test and due to the tight schedule of the running order we were pretty much straight back on court after our match against Suffolk so were perhaps carrying a few tired legs.

Gary Milner started proceedings off and again was involved in an excellent match at number 5 string eventually losing 3-2. Meanwhile Nick Lavery lost 3-1 on the other court against a steady opponent and was not quite able to impose his normal accuracy on the match. LDS pair Adil Maqbool and Steve Davies then brought Bedfordshire back into the frame and levelled things up at 2-2, both winning their matches 3-1. This left the match all down to the number 4 string Bruce St Leger but unfortunately he was unable to recover from his earlier injury and whilst putting up a valiant effort was basically on one leg and lost 3-0.

In the final match Lincs beat Suffolk 4-1 and so Bedfordshire qualified in second place for the promotion weekend in March and hope to continue our recent good form.