South Park Bowls Club

After another victory the only question that comes to mind is how?? - A poor performance by Scott Morland/Bill Morland and Sandra Hopkins saw them got to Fishburn and win 16-15. After playing on heavy green all week in other competitions this bendy rink turned out to be quite difficult.

Tonight sees another demoralising game at home to Shildon BR where again we may be playing short although hope Ryan Harbron will make his debut.

After a hard Darlington & District League season and only at the half way point relegation is already a guaranteed.
Playing short and a team full of inexperienced players has meant us only gaining 3 points this season.

Tonight sees us at home to Brinkburn Dene who have had a surprising good run this season. They are gifted with a big home green advantage and normally at South Park we would expect to win but on this occasion a 3-2 defeat would be an FA Cup winning achievement.

Another 5-0 drubbing this time at the hands of Shildon Town has surely doomed South Park to the District Leagues Division 2 even at this early stage of the season. Again one man down but one highlight was the debut from Paul Kelly.

Competitions this week have seen Keith Burton beat Barry Hopkins Jnr in the 4 wood EBA Singles and both of them losing in the pairs to the Northams. Andy Bell, Scott and Bill Morland were unlucky in the triples losing to Andy Kirtland by 3 shots at Stockton despite being the better team on the night. Scott and Bill were then beaten in the pairs as they couldn’t make a good start pay against Liam Macey and Craig Northam.
Despite these results we wish all our district members luck in the county stages of these competitions.

In the Durham League competitions Scott, Bill and Sandra Hopkins won their first game in the Hospital Cup against Peter Wilkinson rink.

We now look forward to our home matches tonight against Whessoe and tomorrow afternoon against Peterlee. Then Monday night see our debut in the Millenium Cup away at Belmont where a win would see us with a 25 shot advantage againt EverREady Craghead in Round 2. Lets get stuck in!!

We made progress in the EBA Fours and Triples last night seeing both teams into the District Finals.

Bill, Scott Morland and Andy Bell scraped by on an extra end despite losing most of the game beating Andrew Parnell, Bob Oliver and Eric Fordy from Stockton BC.

Barry Hopkins Snr & Jnr, Ken Wood and KEith Burton beat Paul Frasers Hundens rink on the last end in the Fours.

Tonight we face a tricky tie away to Spennymoor B, a bottom of the table clash, we are hoping for a shock win with perfect performances from our newcomers Carlos Bozeate and Jonathan Handley.

Its been a mixed start to the season, after a 4-0 win in the Works League over the Rolling Mills we couldn’t have got off to a better start, then 2 wins and a loss in the Durham and District League has seen us start fairly well. Then disaster has struck on a Thursday night with issues fielding a full team resulting in 3 defetas 5-0, 5-0 and 4-1 with another tough game at Spennymoor this week.

The competitions are progessing well and will keep you updated with successes over the next few weeks.

Well, our first Darlington & District League game ended in disaster. We were comprehensively beaten 5-0 at Shildon BR. To be fair I don’t think the club has won their in 15 years, despite their weakend team we could still ony field 10 men which showed on the result.

We expect better things this saturday in our first Durham home league game as we have an almost full strength team to face Belmont.

The District League meeting took place last week. Although expecting more controversial comments regarding last years Leeholme fixture we came through unscathed with a confirmed league position of 7th.

The meeting itself proved to be another major cockup from the League Sceretary who thought everyones clairvoyant powers would be enough to show up to the meeting. Also a proposal from GPO was not forwarded to clubs and Richmond BC made a proposal they didn’t know thye had submitted! Thank God Nigel Rowley is back at the helm next year.

Please note our own AGM with be held at Darlington & District Bowls Club 7.00pm on Thursday 8th November.

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

Its all coming to a head this week with an away fixture at Cockton Hill tonight and tomorrow night a game away to Leeholme needed 8 points to be sure of survival.

If we do not acheive our 8 point target our fate lies in the game between Shildon Town and Spennymoor A. If Spennymoor beat Shildon 5-0 we would need as little as 3 points to stay up in 2 games so its all exciting in a hope to keep our Division 1 status.

This has however somewhat disrupted our Works League finale as we have been forced to call off our fixtures to play Leeholme instead. We hope these can be rearranged but to be honest the Works League has been somewhat pointless this season for all concerned. I’m sure this will be another interesting AGM where we may make some proposals to rename the league and change the format.

South Park are officially relegated after a point deduction enforced by the League. This report appeared in the Northern Echo today as another decision against us was made without contacting us first. We have been deducted 5 points for failing to show at Leeholme BC, its a shame that we have been punished here for a league error. A formal complaint will be made against the League next week.

Although we are to battle agianst the league to revoke this it may be that relegation maybe a good thing this time round. We are a developing team and life in the 2nd Division may help our new bowlers. The 1st Division is currently beyond our ability and a few wins at a lower level will build confidence.

At this stage we feel a big mention should be made for the new bowlers from last season who have battled significantly and competed at a high level this year, we are proud of their achievements and improvements this year. The most improved players this year are Andy Bell, Simon Brodie, Richard Copeland and Paul Dobson, this is followed by a bowler who has made the step into one of our top bowlers in Martin Snelling.