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Press, 17 August 1977, Page 20

The Canterbury badminton championships, held at the Skelierup Hall last week-end were a triumph for the popular Railway player, Geoff Miller, pictured above. Miller won all three titles available to him—the men’s singles and doubles and the mixed doubles. He was the third seed for the championships and to win the singles title he had to beat two top seeds, Steve Wilson, from Otago, and Canterbury’s top ranked player, Peter Whiting.

Miller produced probably his best badminton of the championships in the semifinals, where he crushed Whiting, 15-5, 15-4. Predictably, Wilson fought his way through to the final, which he should have won in straight games. Leading 15-5, and 10-3 in the second game, Wilson relaxed his grip, tried some injudicious shots which didn’t come off and set Miller on the wav to a fine win, 5-15, 15-12, 15-10.

In the doubles, the pair combined to defeat the inconsistent Paul Boatwood and Whiting. The match was evenly poised until the latter part of the first game when several simple errors by Boatwood, in particular, gave Wilson and Miller the chance to take control, and eventually win comfortably. Miller’s third win was in the mixed doubles when he teamed up with Glenys Waller, his Railway club-mate, to beat Wilson and Chris Reay in three games.

Miller has had his usual successful club season, losing only one singles match out of 12, to Whiting, and has the prospect of gaining his revenge on the North Beach I player in the A grade play-off match next Saturday. The singles title is the fourth Miller has won, the others being in 1969, 1970 and 1973. In that time, no one else has won three titles at one championship. Wilson won the singles in 1974 and 1975, while Brian Purser won it last year.