Archive | February, 2016

Short Mat Players Tour – 6th and 7th February 2016

The Short Mat Players Tour  ( SMPT  ) staged their latest tournament  –  the English Masters  –  at Bromsgrove Indoor Bowls Centre over the weekend of the 6th and 7th of February. This was one of five major tournaments the SMPT stage at Bromsgrove throughout the year, with other major tournaments being staged in Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Norway and Sweden. English masters is an open singles competition with 144 bowlers from several countries participating, including three from the Worcestershire Short Mat Bowls Association  –  Richard Payne / Jim Tingle / Malcolm Saunders. Bowlers were randomly drawn and allocated into groups of six with group matches being played prior to a knockout series.  With 24 mats in use there was plenty of activity over the weekend. Following completion of the group matches the top two bowlers proceeded to the main cup knockout series with third and fourth players competing for the “Plate” trophy and the fifth and six players competing for the “Shield” .

Richard Payne smpt 6 feb 001 (2)

Richard Payne, with two convincing wins  ( 21-8 and 10-5 ) proceeded to the “Plate” competition where his first knockout match resulted in a walkover because   his   opponent was absent sick. Richard won his second knockout match 11-6 and as a result proceeded to the quarter finals where unfortunately he fell short with a 4-10 defeat. In spite of this Richard was well pleased with his overall performance.

 

 

Jim Tingle smpt 6 feb 001 (2)

Jim Tingle also had two comfortable wins in the group stages  ( 12-9 and 14-7 ) and as a result of these wins proceeded to the “Plate” knockout stage of the tournament.     Unfortunately he was unable to take part in this part of the tournament because he was unwell.

 

 

 

jenny & malcolm 9 Jan 001

Malcolm Saunders also had two wins in his group stage ( 10-6 and 11-9 ) to maintain the trend set by Richard and Jim of proceeding into the ” Plate” knockout stage of the tournament. In the “Plate” first round knockout, Malcolm narrowly lost his match 7-8 in what was a very low scoring game.

 

 

 

Overall it was an extremely enjoyable weekend of bowling against some of the best in the country and indeed in Europe.

 

ESMBA Inter County Knockout Series

The County were drawn against Surrey “A” for the preliminary round of the 2016 knockout series. This match was played at Daventry on the 31st January 2016, with the County narrowly losing by 18 points to Surrey’s 22.

During the morning session there were three wins for the county  –   In the Singles Jim Tingle, after a slow start, played a consistently strong game to win by a comfortable margin of 13 shots to 7. There was a very decisive win by Mark Bourne’s Triples team by 18 shots to 4, and a relatively comfortable win for Malcolm Saunders Triples team by 10 shots to 7. At the half way stage of the competition Worcestershire were trailing by 6 points to 10.

The afternoon session saw comfortable wins by Richard Payne ( Singles ) – 13 shots to 8, and by Johnathon Smith/Anthony Ruddy ( Pairs ) – 14 shots to 6. Mark Bourne’s Triples team was in devastating form winning their second match of the day by 22 shots to 6. The only other success during the afternoon was Richard Danks’ Fours team winning by 11 shots to 6.

The final result was a narrow win for Surrey who scored 22 points with Worcestershire on 18 Points. Surrey’s total shot score was 187 compared with 170 for Worcestershire.

The results for each of the disciplines are set out below :

Surrey 31 jan