Bradford Table Tennis League Division One champions Highdale B were strong favourites to complete the double when they met Highdale A in the Burton Cup final.

They were without Richard Whiteley but were still expected to beat Highdale A for the fourth time this season.

Highdale A made a stunning start as Yoni Caspi beat Graham Manicom. Jacob Kodicek had an expected victory over Bradford champion Mark Land and Mark Rycroft came from 2-5 down in the fifth game to beat Peter Morgan and the A team were 3-0 up.

The turning point of the match came when Caspi led an out of sorts Land by 2-1 and 9-4 in the fourth game and a 4-0 lead looked certain. But somehow Land won seven points in a row and took the decider to narrow the gap to 3-1.

Rycroft beat Manicom to put the A team 4-1 up but then Highdale B found their form. Morgan and Land won the next three sets in straight games and suddenly it was 4-4 and Whiteley’s replacement Manicom overcame Kodicek in four games to complete the stunning comeback.

In the Tony Theobould Trophy final Yeadon Flyers were once again involved in a tight finish. Yeadon won their semi-final by three points and their quarter-final by two points but in the final they had to give Fastbats D 105 points start.

Derek Greenwood has been Yeadon’s hero in their close encounters but he made a bad start losing to Terry Miller by seven points in the opening set. Yeadon battled back and with two sets remaining they were only 20 points behind but then the experienced Miller beat Mick Burton by three points and once again it was down to Greenwood to see if he could pull off a hat-trick of last-set heroics for Yeadon against Dave Blackburn.

Yeadon’s hopes rose as Greenwood was consistency personified as he took the first two games 11-6, 11-3. Blackburn foiled their hopes in the third game by hitting superbly and he took it 11-7, leaving Greenwood too much to do and Fastbats triumphed by six points.