The ladies’ Jean’s Jug and men’s Kirkby Trophy badminton doubles tournaments were played at the New Gilson Hall on Sunday and with the largest entries for many a year it proved to be an excellent competitive day’s play.

Gavin Carter and David Sykes triumphed in the men’s tournament, with the ladies’ honours going to Natalie Spooner and June Armstrong.With restrictions on the Island’s top players partnering each other close matches were the order of the day as pairs fought to win their group in order to play in the final.

Group games were two sets to 15 points with no setting, with points totalled to decide the outcome of the group.In section A of Jean’s Jug only 13 points separated the top three.

Natalie Spooner and June Armstrong came out on top with 142 points, just nine ahead of Kim Ashton and Jenny Wheeler who were a further four ahead of Julie Kleiss and Ann Kent.The top two pairs in section B were separated by six points.

Corrine Le Feuvre and Ann Matthews came out on top beating Annabel Lea and Marian Goguelin into second place.

Although Lea and Goguelin were well ahead on points after playing all their other matches they lost out by 28 points to 18 against Le Feuvre and Matthews ensuring a mouth-watering final match-up.The final didn’t disappoint.

Spooner – an Island county player – worked hard around the rear of the court as she tried to command the pace of the game.

However, Le Feuvre and Matthews used their experience to keep the shuttle away from her and won the first set 15-11.The second was a complete turnaround with Spooner using her superior power and Armstrong coming in with some tight net play to comfortably take the set 15-6.

In the deciding set Le Feuvre and Matthews reverted to their earlier tactics.

In an energy sapping set the lead was changed with every serve and at 12-all the match could have swung either way.

With nerves jingling, a couple of rallies ended with some superb net play and Spooner and Armstrong came through to win the set and match 15-13.The men’s Kirkby Trophy was played in one section with the top two pairs earning their place in the final.The winners of the group were Ben Hampton and Joe Kent who played some superb consistent badminton to earn 177 out of a possible 180 points.

They only lost one of their 12 sets, to Haydn Ridd and up-and-coming junior Alex Hutchins.

The latter were pushed into joint third place with juniors Chris Agathangelou and Piers Le Moignan by losing the last match of the day to Gavin Carter and David Sykes who thus qualified for the final.Hampton and Kent went into the final with memories of a 15-10, 15-11 win over Carter and Sykes only two hours earlier.

After a tense start play settled down with Hampton and Kent controlling the rallies and trying to keep Carter – the Island captain – out of the match.This, however, brought the best out of Sykes who under immense pressure came out with some excellent defensive play.

With the scoring extremely close Carter and Sykes just scraped the first 15-12.The second started in the same vein but after a full days play fitness started to take its toll and Carter was able to assert some pressure.

Although Hampton and Kent dug in and were able to keep their momentum going it was not enough to stop Carter and Sykes winning the second and the match 15-9.