The County’s first match of the season is against Gloucestershire on Sunday the 15th September and will be at Bromsgrove – 9.30 am for a 10.00 am start. This match is the first of two legs to be played aginst Gloucestershire for the Two Shires Trophy. The squad for this match is set out below:
This year’s pairs competition will take place at Bromsgrove Indoor Bowls Centre on Sunday 29th September. This will be the qualifying event for the National Finals which will take place next year. Players wishing to compete are asked to complete the proforma document shown below and inform either Richard Payne or Richard Rose of their intentions.
The Summer Club Championship took place this year at the Solihull Indoor Bowls Centre on Sunday 7th July. In addition to being a championship competition in it’s own right, the event also acts as a qualifying round for the TLH Top Club finals held in Torquay, the next event being in May next year.
Fourteen clubs entered this year’s competition, including one from Worcestershire – Churchill and Blakedown Short Mat Bowls Club, with ten clubs proceeding to next year’s finals. Churchill and Blakedown have consistently qualified for the Torquay event but this year failed to do so. This was a great disappointment to the squad which consisted of – Richard Rose, Terry Clifford, Alan Walters, Trish Clifford, Sandra Felton, Dave Grove, Rob Franklin and Malcolm Saunders.
Churchill and Blakedown were drawn to play against “Magic Circle” ( West Midlands ), “Carey” ( Dorset ), and “Great Houghton” ( Northamptonshire ). In the match against Magic Circle, Richard had a great start winning his Singles match 10-7. Richard and Terry drew their pairs match 10-10, but both Fours and Triples teams lost their matches. There was no success in the matches against Carey. In the matches against Great Houghton, both the Singles and Fours lost their matches, but there was a win in the Pairs ( Dave and Alan ) by 10 shots to 9. In the triples match Trish, Sandra and Malcolm had a comfortable win by 12 shots to 4.
Overall Chuchill and Blakedown scored 74 shots with 121 against.
Sixteen top clubs from across England competed in the ESMBA / TLH event held in Torquay. Churchill and Blakedown SMB Club was the only club from Worcestershire competeing, having qualified for the event in July 2018. The club’s team consisted of – Terry Clifford / Richard Rose / Sandra Felton / Trish Clifford / Alan Walters / Dave Grove / Rob Franklin and Malcolm Saunders.
In the group stage of the tournament Churchill and Blakedown was drawn against strong opposition from clubs located in Cornwall, Wast Midlands and Dorset. Churchill and Blakedown were disapppointed not to have won one of the individual games against the Cornwall and West Midlands clubs, but fared much better against against the Hazelbury Bryan team from Dorset.. The Fours team ( Trish/Rob/Malcom/Terry ) won their game, as did the Triples team ( Dave/Sandra/Alan ). Rob and Malcolm drew their Pairs game. The team finished the day in much better spirits but failed to qualify for the main trophy knockout series. The team were drawn against ” Magic Circle ” from the West Midlands in the quarter final ” Plate” knockout series. Churchill and Blakedown lost narrowly in the Singles and Fours games. The Triples team also lost, but Malcolm and Terry won their Pairs game 9-6.
Having had a disappointing tournament the club is looking forward to regaining their winning ways when the qualifying fixture for next year’s tournement is announced later this year.
This away fixture against Gloucestershire was the second leg of the 2018/19 Two Shires Trophy competition, the first leg having been won by Gloucestershire. The county had a reduced squad for this event because six of their bowlers were at Daventry playing in the ESMBA National Finals – Triples. The county had a disappointing day only winning three of the sixteeen individual matches. All eight matches during the morning were lost. The afternoon session saw Tony Crowley and Malcolm Saunders winning their pairs match 14-10, and Richard Rose and Terry Clifford winning their pairs match 15-10. The only other success was Richard Rose’s fours team which included Kath Edwards, Carl Wilkes and Gary Markham, winning by 14-11.
A summary of the results is shown below :
