South Park Bowls Club

We had another win last night of 3 and a half to 1 and a half against Shildon Town at home.

It is now official that we need 8.5 points to guarantee promotion, but I dare say it will be less than that as many teams have to win most of their games 5-0 to catch us with their games in hand.

Two points will see the RA finish below us who are in 3rd and it depends on results this week and next as to whether anyone else can catch us.

The chance to win the title will be very difficult as Barnard Castle are matching us point for point in their games so the game against them in 2 weeks will be vital.

Another good performance last night with a 5-0 win over Rolling Mills for the second time this season.

Unfortunately Rolling Mills played 3 players short which in reality made the game easy.

We have another home game tonight against Shildon Town and need to make it count as we have 3 difficult games ahead of us to finish off the season.

We would like to say well done to Central CIU this week as they won the league knock-out on Monday and look to be winning the double. This team is full of South Park players and we are pleased that their winning form is showing also on a Thursday night.

Bill Morland & Barry Hopkins pulled off an excellent win last night in the Cameron Pairs which moves them into the final.

They beat Steve and Paul Northam at Woodland BC last night winning 18-14. The scoreline suggests it was a close game but it really should have been a forgone conclusion if it wasn’t for losing 2 big ends.

Steve & Paul were obviously disappointed but this is an excellent win for our lads leaving them with a long trip back to South Shields.

Just a reminder to all members that this weeks game is off and next week we are now only playing Wed and Thurs, Wednesday at home to Rolling Mills. The Barnard Castle game has been put back to the 7th September.

Another bad result for our Building Society Fours team. Scott Morland, Bill Morland, Martin Snelling and Tony Smith were beaten by a strong RA rink of Andrew Kirtland, Mark Ralphs, John Hills & Alan Stephenson.

Please note all members that this weeks home game with Rolling Mills has been canceled and 3 games are to take place next week. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Please remember to let Geoff Moore know if any of you are not available.

Its been another tough week for our members in competitions.

Scott Morland was defeated by Graham Peacock in the Co-op Cup and Bill Morland was defeated last night in the Champion of Champions by Kenny Lamb of Brinkburn Dene.

Despite a close encounter neither Scott or Bill were able to find the form they both know they are capable of.

The Clubs Fun Event took place yesterday. It was a raging success and all we can say it was great to see 2 full greens of people and spectators there to see it.

We managed to attract 12 non-bowlers to the vent including 6 young players, many of which are to join the club on a more permanent basis.

The club would like to congratulate the winners of the Centenary & Mick Coleman Shields. These were Bill Morland and Martin Snelling who did the business on the day.

Also we would like to thank Claire Morland, Sarah Snelling and many of the bowlers for magnificent amounts of help throughout the day.

However the biggest thank you for making the day possible and such a success goes to Sandra Hopkins who worked her socks off to provide excellent refreshments. The day couldn’t have been done without her.

Last but not least we are pleased to say we managed to raise the total of £175.68 for the club.

The team got another great result last night to boost our promotion chances. Despite 1 rink being demoralised at East Park, the team triumphed to an emphatic 4-1 win.

We still need 2 players for Sundays fun event, so come on down before the places are snatched!

After a hard nights bowling we managed to beat Darlington RA 3-2 in the rearranged fixture. After 10 ends we had 3 rinks losing but after a few good comebacks we managed to scrape through doing our title chances no harm at all.

Tonigth we look forward to another hard fixture away to East Park who beat us at home earlier this season.

The lads did our club proud once again the Quaker Bowl Triples.

Barry Hopkins, Barry Hopkins Jnr & John Smith got to the final after a long day of bowling and were pipped at the last post by a usually lucky Hundens team skipped by Mick Baines. Even the green pegs were changed to give the home side a better chance!

Never mind, we don’t need to cheat to win!! - only joking well done to the Hundens lads and buy us all a pint with your winnings!

Our Website Manager made his debut on Friday night in the Town Rink Triples (thrown in at the deep end!)

Quote “It was all kinds of scary”, however he did play very well for a beginner and we were in the lead twice against a Bishop Auckland trio skipped by Michael Walker.

If Scott & Bill Morland had been on their game we probably would have beaten them as it wasn’t a high standard match.

I’m sure Andy Bell will prove to be a dark horse in the weekends fun event as signs of confidence started to show towards the end.

Also we were please to see Simon Brodie coming down for a roll up, he is playing in the fun event on Sunday and looked a far better player than he was when he played for us back in 1996!!