South Park Bowls Club

For the 2nd week running Bill Morland and Sandra Hopkins stole the glory in our club competitions.

Bill beat Barry Hopkins Jnr in the Centenary Shield Final and Sandra beat Scott Morland in the Turner Trophy Final.

Although it was a poor turnout of 6 people it still turned out to be a funday witht he league table of the first stages finished in the following order:-

Pts
W. Morland 8
B. Hopkins Jnr 8
S. Hopkins 6
S. Morland 6
S. Brodie 2
M. Best 0

After being the leagues most pointless team for most of the season a late surge sees us not only picking up points but forcing our way out of relegation.

Although confirmation is still awaited it is likely that Cockton Hill and Shildon Town are to be relegated and we live to fight another day.

This is of a great achievement for this bowling club and we would like to say thanks to all members. It has been a difficult year and many have suffered heavy regular defeats but team spirit was never lost which helped our chances in the latter stages. I’m sure next year now we are settled we will be a much stronger force in Division 1.

We also have to give our congratulations to the following club competition winners from the weekend:-

Stan Johnson Plate
Winner Bill Morland
Runner-up Barry Hopkins Jnr

Mick Coleman Shield
Winner Sandra Hopkins
Runner-up Peter Boyle

Scott Morland quoted “I feel like I have just won at Worthing!”, as he defeated Sandra Hopkins 21-19 in the Mechtool Championship, after a comeback from 19-7 down.

In other news, Barry Hopkins Jnr has progressed to the Henderson Shield semi finals, after beating Sandra 21-5, the Junior Championship final, after beating Peter Binney 21-2, and the Mechtool Championship 2nd round, beating Keith Burton 21-10. After being disappointed in the South Park championship, he is aiming to defend the Works League Title he won last year.

There has been some progress made in the Town Competitions in recent weeks, as Barry Hopkins Jnr and Snr beat Steve Northam and Mark Ralphs of the RA 16-3 to reach the Cameron pairs Semi Finals, where an encounter with Andrew Kirtland seems very likely. The two Barry Hopkins’ and Glyn Jones are also in the Semi Finals of the Town Triples, to play Brinkburn Denes Ray Bowers rink, and the same 3 plus Bill Morland are up against Alan Stephensons rink from the RA in the Darlington Building Society Fours Semi Finals. Hopefully we can make it through in all of them, as the finals will be played on our home green at South Park, due to one of the Vets players being President this season, and this will surely give our lads a great advantage.

Bill Morland won the South Park Championship yet again after he beat Barry Hopkins Snr 21-15. After being lucky to knock out Barry Jnr in the previous round, he had a more comfortable win in the final. Bill now aims to win the district Champion of Champions for the second year running.

In other news, Barry Hopkins Jnr lost another singles match by a narrow margin as he went down 21-18 in the Co-op cup, the district two bowl singles, to Graham Peacock at Hundens. Not a bad effort, and after Barry had made his traditional comeback, from 13-4 down he just got pipped at the very end.

Barry Hopkins jnr agonisingly missed out on a place in the county Under-25 singles final, and more importantly a trip to Worthing,  in a 21-20 defeat to Philip Dixon of Sunderland B.C. last night. The match was played at Barnes Park, in Sunderland, which means that Philip had probably played on this green before. It was close game all the way, and Barry had a couple of chances to wrap the match up towards the end. At 18-15 he had to trail the jack a yard to win, but could only just clip the jack slightly as his bowl went through. It inevitably reached 20-all,and with the last bowl of the match Barry came so close to taking out Philips shot bowl, but caught it too full on and the bowl was pushed onto the jack and just managed to stay on the edge of the green while the jack went into the ditch. Also in the semi-finals there was a narrow defeat to another player from the darlington area as Andrew Kirtland lost 21-20 in the 2-bowl singles.

Sunday night was also disappointing, as Barry and Sandra were knocked out of the mixed pairs 17-11 in another tight game against Eddie Henry. They kept it close, but were never in the lead, and just didn’t bowl well enough to win on the night.

Last night saw a good victory for Barry Hopkins Jnr and Sandra Hopkins, beating Gary Cockerill and Chelsea Parnell in the National Mixed pairs. They led all the game and eventually won comfortably 26-9.

Unfortunately our EBA pairs team of Barry Hopkins and Bill Morland lost their district final to Andy Kirtland and Tony Bousfield. They were unable to pull off a victory and join our other team of Scott Morland and Glyn Jones in the county stages.

After a cracking fortnight of bowling we were left to admit defeat last night in 2 EBA District Finals.

Barry Hopkins crashed out of the Two Wood Singles as Andrew Kirtland got his revenge in a comprehensive defeat.

In the Triples Scott Morland/Andy Bell and John Smith caused problems for the Northam Family but unfortunately were pipped after being level at 15-15 going into the last end. This was still no mean feat against a very experienced rink. Our rink was 9-2 up then slumped by dropping a 5 and 2 3’s to go 15-9 down. Sadly there wasn’t enough left in the tank to finish off the game and complete the comeback.

Barry Hopkins Jnr pulled off an amazing comeback against Craig Northam of the RA to get through to the county stages of the EBA Junior Singles. He was completely outbowled in the first part of the game, falling 15-3 behind, but eventually started winning some ends. He changed the length of the jack and pulled off a 21-17 victory.

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.

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.