South Park Bowls Club

This week has seen a tremendous effort in the push for EBA glory with the following wins:-

S. Morland/G. Jones beat P. Edwards/M. Ralphs
B. Hopkins Jnr beat S. Clarke
B. Hopkins/W. Morland beat Barnard Castle
S. Morland beat C. Black
S. Morland/J. Smith/A.Bell beat J. Embleton

These were all magnificent wins seeing all players through to the semi-finals.

As usual these games never go without controversy. Glyn Jones and Scott Morland are through to the County stages of the pairs after being given the game by Howard Davidsons rink. After not accepting any of the given dates from Scott they decided to retire from all EBA competitions permenantly not being happy with the set rules that have been in place for tens of years.

Next week will see all the District Finals take place and we are hopeful that more of our top players will qualify for the County stages.

Sadly this week saw us thrashed 5-0 at Spennymoor A.
A far superior team gave the team what they deserved, we must now improve dramatically as we are languishing many points behind already at the bottom of the table.
Next week sees the last of our 4 death matches and sees 4 games ahead that we are capable of picking up wins from against Woodland, Barnard Castle and Shildon Town.

Last night was a great night for all concerned in EBA competition. Barry Hopkins and Bill Morland beat Graham Peacock and Stuart Clarke from Hundend in the EBA Pair. In the same competition Scott Morland and Glyn Jones battled from miles behind to scrape a win away at blustery Barnard CAstle against John Embleton.
The heavy conditions will certainly be good practice for playing in the league at the RA Pig Farm tonight.

We had success in the Mixed Pairs last night as well with Sandra and Barry Hopkins Jnr travelling to Sherburn and scraping a win with a big last end.

Our young pairs team of Barry Hopkins Jnr and Kieth Burton won their first round EBA pairs against Paul Frazer and Terry Mieklejohn. Some good bowls were played on a very dodgy hundens rink, and they just clinched it after being level going into the final end.

Barry Hopkins Snr enjoyed a 21-18 victory over Paul Northam in the 4 wood singles. After getting through to worthing in 2003 we haven’t really seen the best of Barry in recent years. However this win over last years county finalist should give him some confidence.

Barry Hopkins Jnr also defeated Scott Morland 21-11 to progress to the semi-finals of the 2-wood singles.

The next two weeks sees many of our members go into National action.  With 3 lots of Pairs matches and various individual competitions lying ahead it really is make or break time for our club.

Sadly Bill Morland couldn’t repeat Barry Hopkins success yesterday as he was defeated surprisingly by Stuart Clarke in the Two Bowl Singles after leading 19-14.

Tonight pending on weather condition has Scott Morland taking on Alan Stephenson at the RA Crop Farm.

Barry Hopkins Jnr sensationally progressed in the EBA singles with a victory over  Andrew Kirtland. After being 8-3 up he let his lead slip and ended up 17-9 down. He never gave up and kept battling and picked up a 4 to make it 17-13. Eventually the game went to 20-20 and Baz held on to win the final end. This is his first EBA singles victory, and he travels to the terrible RA green for a second round clash with Vinnie Rewcastle.

Unfortunately Bill Morland finished a bad weekend with a 21-19 defeat to Stuart Clarke in the 2 bowl singles. After being beaten at the RA on saturday he was hoping to regain some form, but it wasnt to be.

3 of our players have been selected for the forthcoming county games.  Scott Morland and Barry Hopkins as leads in the B Team and Barry Hopkins Jnr as 2nd in the C Team.

Unfortunately our other gifted player Keith Burton has been overlooked, it seems despite being a top young player there is no place in the team for him at this time.  This disappointment is followed by all of our young stars not being selected in the Durham County Under 25 team.

Arguably we have some of best young players in the County but in a Sunderland and Northern Durham ran County it seems our players will have to achieve extra honours than the average young bowler to be noticed.  Maybe they should join bigger clubs where people can carry them through to wins every week!?????

Never mind, I’m sure if these young players can go out this season and prove the selection committee wrong and keep their heads up through this dissappointing time.  

Although there are many plusses going into the new season we are left looking back on poor results at an early stage.

We were defeated at home to Leeholme 4-1 with B. Hopkins, A. Wilkes and M. Snelling being the only winners.  Then both teams were defeated in the Works League.  A Team defeated at home 2.5 to 1.5 and the B Team defeated 3-1 at the Dene against the JUC Club.

EBA action is getting underway but again not with the results wanted.  Bill Morland was defeated heavily at The RA by Tony Bousfield.  After a close start on what is the Countries worst bowling green 2 ends of a 3 and a 4 took the wind out of Bills sales and allowed Tony to eventually ease to victory.

The Mixed Fours Team of the full Hopkins family took place today also, despite leading for most of the game a disasterous last 3 ends where 12 shots were dropped ending their dream of National glory.

Last weekend 3 teams representing Darlington Indoor Bowls Centre took part in an under 18’s triples tournament. The teams included 5 south park members. The A Team of Barry Hopkins Jnr, Liam Mortimer and Louise Abel dominated the tournament, winning all 3 games, and scoring 2 maximums throughout the day. The B team included 3 south park members, Keith Burton, Jessica Hopkins and Jordan Harston. This team won their first 2 games and the A and B teams were holding 1st and 2nd positions going into the days final games, with 4 points each, and seperated on shot difference by just 1 shot. The A team won their final game 22-5, which made sure of them being champions, but the B team lost their final game, but still held on for 3rd place. The Darlington C team unfortunately did not win a game, but came very close in their first 2 games, and on another day would probably have won them. The C team consisted of David and Steven Bogg, and another of our south park junior members, Peter Binney.

We face our first of four tough opening fixtures in the Distict League tomorrow night with a home game with Leeholme BC.

We are fielding a keen but inexperienced team and face top bowlers such as Colin Jefferson, former South Park Bowler Barry Attwood and Dave Quickmire.

It looks to be a hard game but at home we will battle and 3 points would be an excellent start to the season.