PAUL DRINKHALL admits a fantastic year has ended on something of a sour note after England failed to secure promotion at the European Team Table Tennis Championships in Lisbon.

England's men's and women's teams both travelled to Portugal with hopes of winning the Challenge Division in order to seal promotion to the Championship Division and secure a place at next year's inaugural European Games in Baku.

However, despite having achieved a similar feat at the World Team Championships earlier this year, neither team was able to make it into the promotion places.

Both won their groups to move into the play-off stages, but respective defeats in their opening play-off matches condemned them to remain in the second tier.

Drinkhall, who is from Loftus, Cleveland, won three out of four matches in the group stage against Luxembourg, Turkey and Finland, although he was surprisingly beaten by Benedek Olah of Finland, despite holding a 2-0 lead.

In the play-off stages, England lost 3-1 to Belgium and Slovenia, before beating Turkey in what amounted to a dead rubber.

Drinkhall, who won a gold medal in the mixed doubles at this summer's Commonwealth Games, lost his match against Belgium and did not feature against Slovenia, but signed off with a 3-0 win over Turkey's Batuhan Ulucak.

"It’s slightly disappointing, to be honest," he said. "We’ve had a great year with the Worlds and Commonwealths and we came here to go up and qualify for Baku, which obviously we didn’t do.

"It’s a disappointment, especially me as I don’t think I played near my level except in patches. It was small margins against Belgium, and that’s when you’ve got to be playing well, and unfortunately I wasn’t at that point.

"But we’ll come back. We don’t want to let it affect us but it’s a warning that we need to stay focused and look to improve and keep moving forward.”