Archive | March, 2020

ESMBA National Finals 2020

The first National Finals event  –  the Mixed Fours  –  took place at Solihull on the 7th march. Three teams from the county competed  –  ( 1 )  Belinda Gibbs / Dave Grove / Maureen Tingle / Jim Tingle.   ( 2 ) Yvonne Payne / Richard Rose / Sandra Felton / Richard Payne.   ( 3 )  Jenny Gibbs / Trish Clifford / Alan Walters / Terry Clifford.

Belinda/Dave/Maureen/ Jim  had tough opposition  in the round robin series of matches and lost, –  5-7  against an East Sussex team, 5-11 against Norfolk, and 2-7 against Devon.  They did not proceed to the knockout stages.

The two other teams did exceptionally well in the group stages, finishing top of their respective groups. Yvonne/Richard/Sandra/Richard narrowly lost to a team from Dorset 7-8, but won 8-0 against Northants and 10-3 against Hertfordshire.  In the first of the knockout rounds they lost 3-9 to a team from Essex.

Jenny/Trish/Alan/Terry won all three of their group games  –  14-6 against Surrey,  9-5 against North Yorkshire, and 7-4 against Cambridgeshire. In the first of the knockout rounds they lost 3-12 to a team from Avon.

The second National Finals event   –   the Over 55’s Pairs   –   took place on the 8th March, also at Solihull. Two teams from the county competed   –    Trish and Terry Clifford  –  and  –  Richard Rose and Richard Payne.

In the group series of matches, Trish and Terry lost 6-13 to a team from Norfolk, lost 6-8 to a team from Essex, but had a crushing 18-3 win over the team from Wiltshire. Unfortunately they did not make the knockout stages.

The two Richards had narrow defeats of 7-8 against a team from Buckinghamshire, and also Kent, but had a convincing win against a team from East Sussex by 12 shots to 7. Because of a superior shot difference they qualified for the knockout stages but in the first round of the knockouts were defeated by a team from North Yorkshire  4-14.

Because of the impact of the coronavirus epidemic, the remaining National Finals competitions have been re – scheduled for the beginning of September.

County v Devon – 16th February 2020

The county were drawn to play against Devon in this preliminary end of season ESMBA inter county knockout series. The match took place in Bristol. Unfortunately the county suffered  a shock defeat by 10 points to 30, which came as a bit of a surprise after a very successful season.  As far as the county were concerned, Jenny and Richard had a very good day winning both of their pairs matches  –  12-11 in the morning followed by a very convincing 20-8 win in the afternoon. This was instrumental in winning  two bonus points, helped by Leah and Sean’s 16-11 morning win. The only other county success was Belinda/Sandra/Richard’s triples win in the morning session by 12 shots to 10.

A summary of the day’s play is shown below  :