In the return leg of the Emerton Court match against Tiverton, the onus was on Tiverton to try to overturn the 4-1 lead which Sidmouth had built on their home leg and, for most of the very tense contest at Tiverton, it seemed that the home team would do just that, writes John Rockey.

Team captain Peter Spooner led off with his partner Chris Ashley and the pair reached the turn in level par, only to find that they were three down, due to some fine golf from their opponents.

Whilst the Sidmouth pair managed to hold on for a few more holes on the back nine, the inevitable happened and the match was lost 5 and 4.

The second pairing of Trevor Kerridge and Pat McCormack were met by much the same high standard of play from their opposition and also lost 5 and 4.

The Sidmouth third pair of club captain Dave Hoare and John Rockey were up against the Tiverton pairing which won so convincingly at Sidmouth. This turned out to be a tight match with Dave having to birdie the first hole for a half and there was never more than one hole between the teams until the finish. The crunch came at the 16th and 17th holes, where the Sidmouth pair managed wins for a 2 and 1 victory.

The normally reliable pair of Alec Salway and Bob Welsman were next up and were soon three down after three holes, from which they never recovered, and went on to lose 3 and 2, leaving the final pair of Bob Webber and Douglas Goodall to try to get at least a half to enable Sidmouth to progress to the next round.

This was another titanic battle with little to chose between the pairs all the way round and coming up the 17th it was all square. Douglas hit a super shot about 25 feet from the pin, but the Tiverton pair both hit their second shots well inside him, leaving Douglas to putt first.

To the delight of the Sidmouth team members and the supporters who had made the journey for the match, Douglas’s putt found the bottom of the hole for a magnificent birdie under the circumstances and it was left to the Tiverton pair to hole one of their putts to progress the match.

They failed and Sidmouth had managed to get the one and half points needed to get through to the next round.