GEMMA YARNLEY had a tremendous time in the Folkestone and District Table Tennis Association's closed championships winning a magnificent eight titles at Folkestone Sports Centre.

Having swept to the big one, becoming the youngest ever winner of the ladies title, she added the doubles with Carla Burgin and mixed with dad Keith.

In the junior competitions Yarnley won the Under-17 crown, junior girls doubles with younger sister Laura, and the mixed with another young rising star John Bispham. She also won the Under-15 and Under-13 singles titles with victories over Wayne Scanlan.

It was almost the year of the Yarnley family with mother Alison winning the Division 3 singles crown and father Keith also winning the veterans singles and hard bat singles and only denied a clean sweep by Scott Dawtry who took the men's crown.

Dawtry also retained the men's doubles title with Mark Stanton with a victory over Phil Saxby and Rob Porter. Scott ended the run of unseeded Lee Edginton in the semi-finals.

Lee had caused the major shock of the tournament putting out top seed and singles holder Phil Saxby in a dramatic five set match.

Another family to feature well in the championships were the Bisphams with mother Sue reaching the final of the ladies' doubles with Barbara Rutherford and winning the minor doubles with son John while father Steve reached the final of the veterans' doubles where he and Keith Yarnley were beaten by Chris Hooper and Keith Lythgoe.

Young John is a good prospect for the future winning the Under-11 singles, the mixed junior doubles with Gemma Yarnley and the Division 2 singles. He also reached the final of the junior boys doubles with Wayne Scanlan where they lost out to Ashley Scanlan and Shaun Owen.

John joined forces with the veteran David Cue to reach the final of the allocated doubles where they came back from 2-0 down to be edged out 15-13 in the fifth by Roger Palmer and Alan Maycock.