Cromer played their second match of the summer when they entertained neighbours Fakenham II in their Norfolk SRA Summer League Division Two fixture and finished very much on the wrong end of a 16-0 scoreline.

Technical Director Barry Starling made one change from the team who performed so creditably at Broadland, with club stalwart Kim Payne coming into the team at No.4.

In the absence of No.1 Alex Oliver, the three other players, John Chandler, Martin Sanville and Matthew Jordan, all moved up the order.

As well as Oliver not being available Starling was also without reigning club champion Stephen Watts and former club champions, John Baker and Ed Crookenden while Fakenham appeared to be very much at full strength.

It was no surprise therefore that Cromer lost but it was still disappointing to go down to such a heavy defeat.

The two veterans Sanville and Chandler were first on court but neither was able to make much headway against their opponents. Chandler lost in straight games to the Fakenham captain Jason Smith without ever being in serious contention while Sanville, who had chances in both the first and third games of his match also lost 3-0 to the former Norfolk SRA League secretary Kevin Blake.

Fellow veteran Kim Payne was soundly beaten by Gary Hastings who seemed to enjoy the luxury of playing the fourth string match while in the final match of the evening Matthew Jordan played well against the visitors' No.1 Connor Doy and with a little bit of luck could easily have taken both the second and third games but in the end he became the fourth Cromer player to lose 3-0.

Afterwards a philosophical Starling said: 'It is not very often all our team lose in straight games but it wasn't as though we played badly. The Fakenham team were simply better than us and they thoroughly deserved their clean sweep. If we had been able to call upon one of our absentees it might have made a difference but we will never know. Our team are big enough and experienced enough to bounce back from this.'

Results: Matthew Jordan lost to Connor Doy 7-13 11-13 10-13. Martin Sanville lost to Kevin Blake 10-13 6-13 10-13. John Chandler lost to Jason Smith 9-13 7-13 9-13. Kim Payne lost to Gary Hastings 1-13 2-13 3-13.