Cleobury men crashed to a three one defeat against local rivals Wombourne in the first game of 2004.

Despite a useful training session the previous day, it all went horribly wrong on Sunday January 4.

Cleobury have never performed well against Wombourne but the start of the first set heralded a reversal of the recent fortunes of the side as the scoreline remained close into the early teens. In what was to become a defining feature of the game, Cleobury then had a series of attacks where all of their hitters failed to find any part of the Wombourne Court, giving their opponents a lead which they kept to the end of the set.

Narrow lead

Set two was a repeat of set one with Wombourne maintaining a narrow lead which they nurtured until they were 18 to 14 up. Cleobury used a timeout to gather their thoughts and refocus their defensive efforts. An epic comeback then followed with Cleobury picking up all of the loose balls all over their court and converting them into points with varied and explosive front court work from the likes of Simon Eades and Paul Guest. Cleobury maintained their work rate to take the set and tie the game.

Set three was handed to Wombourne as despite maintaining a good first ball, all of the Cleobury hitters produced errors in abundance. Setter Carl Brookes was trying his best but no matter where he set the ball to it was hit out or driven into the net. The Wombourne lead grew as quickly as the Cleobury heads went down.

Cleobury found themselves in another potential five set match if they could win the fourth set. After a better start it looked as if the fifth set was on the cards but after another succession of hitting errors, Wombourne opened another lead twenty one to sixteen. Cleobury fought a brief rearguard but were ultimately unable to convert their hits against a hard working Wombourne defence who pushed on to win the set and the match.

Cleobury player of the day was Simon Eades who was one of the few hitters to make full use of his attacking shots.