South Park Bowls Club

It was nearly a good night for Barry Hopkins Jnr who was beating Scott Morland 8-7 in the club championship until Scott was forced to suspend play due to personal reasons. Barry has agreed to resume play on Saturday from the same scoreline in which he hopes to progress to the next round. This was incredibly nice of him to do this as he is within his rights to claim the game and progress without resuming play.

Barry forced several weighted shots from and probably would have gone on to win as Scott was struggling with the weather conditions. We shall see what sort of game it is at the weekend as all is left to play for for both players.

Our first club championship game was played last night. Bill Morland beat Barry Hopkins in the first round.

May I remind everyone that this competition must be played as quickly as possible as it has to be completed in the next couple of weeks for the winner to take part in the champion of champions. Tonight sees Barry Hopkins Jnr take on Scott Morland in his first round tie.

Disappointment struck again last night as Scott Morland struggled to come to terms with the quagmire bowls green at Darlington R.A. John Hills beat him comfortably 21-12 to progress to the second round of the Lord Younger Town Singles.

We are to congratulate Barry Hopkins, William Morland, Martin Snelling & Barry Hopkins Jnr on an excellent win in the county stages of the EBA Fours. They defeated a R. Robinsons rink from Roker Marine, Sunderland which was played at Blackhall Bowling Club last night. This puts them into the last 16 of the championships with 3 games left to potentially send them to the all England finals at Worthing. We wish them well and fingers crossed they can put our club back on the map yet again following quite a successful 10 year period for our members in EBA Competition.

The weekend saw our first Club Competition played, the Stan Johnson Plate. It was a pleasant day with some friendly competition. We invited all to play in this competition members or not and disappointingly only 8 people turned up. Come on members, show some support if we wish to have a club to build on for the future. Despite this we had a good day with 2 ladies taking part this year Jessica Hopkins & Sarah Snelling. Yes, you are right in thinking the Hopkins clan is growing at this club!!

After playing 2 groups of 4, the finalists were Scott Morland & Martin Snelling in which Scott became champion for the 3rd time in this competition. This was still an achievement for Martin playing in his first final which I’m sure will be the first of many.

One big part of todays report on this competition is Barry Jnr emphatically stopped his Dad reaching the final!! - Although not upset by this - the look on big Barry’s face said it all!! Action shots from this competition to follow soon……

Another weekend of County Bowling took place this weekend in which we are proud to say our 13 year old bowler Barry Hopkins Jnr made his full county debut. Sadly along with his father the day turned out in defeat as the C Team were beaten 22-0 at Consett Park.

Scott Morland had more luck in the B Team this week where his rink finished as top rink and they defeated Cumbria to win the AJ Alsop Trophy. Remember this trophy is named after a bowler from our club that was once EBA President. Despite a good result here Scott wished the ground had swallowed him up when he wobbled a wood onto the rink next door in the first few ends!! Action photos from the C Teams game to follow soon……

Another unlucky result for Barry Hopkins ends his hope for glory in the Lord Younger Town Singles. He was beaten 21-20 by Mark Ralphs of Darlington RA on his ground. Barry was obviously disappointed but felt more angry by his under performance on the night. But we wish him better luck in the town two wood competition, the Co-op Cup where he meets another one of our members Scott Morland who won the competition only 2 years ago.

A disappointing week for our players in their County matches this week as both Scott Morland and Barry Hopkins were defeated on their rinks. The County B Team however won 18-4 at Darlington Woodland against Lancashire but the C Team were beaten 19-3 at Edenside in Carlisle.

There is some good news this week for Barry Hopkins Jnr as he has been selected for the County C Team in their final game this week.

Just also a quick note that our Stan Johnson Plate is to be played for this Sunday starting at 1.30pm, all bowlers welcome. No prior entry to the competition required.

We are delighted to say that Les Beckler has become a member of our club and is available for league fixtures as from now, we wish him the best of luck.

Also last night saw a good win in the league knock-out of 4-1 over Bishop Auckland, we await to see whether we will make the trip to Shildon Railway or Spennymoor B in the next round.

We welcome another newcomer to the club Andrew Wise. He is joining us for a practice this Thursday along with Les Beckler. This is a good start to our advertising campaign for new bowlers as we hope to find another 13 to enter another team into the Darlington & District League.

We now have a new notice board in the clubhouse, please read all notes to see the ambitions we have going forward as a club.

Also we require prises for a club raffle to be drawn on the weekend of our fun event in August. Any donations would be appreciated here - Thank you.

Good news for tonight’s match at home to Central RA. Barry Hopkins Jnr has returned to action after recovering from injury. Our website manager Andrew Bell was going to cover for him tonight so we would like to thank him for making himself available. When asked about how he felt he said “to be honest I’m quite relieved as I’ve only played once, against Scott and was convincingly beaten 21-1″.

Also we would like to welcome Les Beckler to South Park, who is the first person to show interest in our advertising for the fun event. He is joining us for coaching next Thursday and hopefully we can convince him to join the club!!

Barry Hopkins played for the County C Team at the weekend and was part of the team that was beaten 15-7 overall at Stockton BC - Details are on the Durhambowlseba website. Barry Hopkins Jnr was again reserve and is hoping to make his debut in the near future.

Scott Morland has again been selected for the B Team in this weeks fixture against Yorkshire at Dunnington in York.

Another bad result for Scott Morland in this years EBA competitions. After being 11-0 down in 20 mins he was able to come back against Graham Peacock of Hundens 11-9 but ran out of steam. The final result was 21-13.