South Park Bowls Club

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!!

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.

At last we finally have someone willing to take the Works League forward as Chris Oyston was voted the new Works League Secretary.

The league now has intentions and possibly a future. From our clubs point of view this is still a disaster. We have been forced to withdraw a team from this league as our proposal to change the format to double fours has been rejected.

This league badly needs promoting and it looks as though the league will only do this kicking and screaming, however last night some foundations were layed but it seemed that nobody cares that a team has dropped out. This could happen to Cummins next year, how many casualties will it take before this problem is taken seriously.

Sadly despite our ongoing methods of increasing of the membership and forming new teams we are finding this year difficult.

We have lost Martin Snelling which is a huge loss with many more rumoured to be leaving. This is a shame as we look to build a strong saturday afternoon team. This also means we may have to reconsider that we may not be able to enter 2 treams into the works league this year.

In a lacklustre fixture, again Mechtool B found themselves 2 players short to face Alpha Plus at North Lodge.

2 people kindly volunteered to play at the last minute.

Carl Bozeate and Jonathan Handley made their debut and for 5 ends they were outstanding, a loud mouthed crowd of 2 people were applauding and jeering. Although these 2 people were drinking in the park like a couple of alcoholics on the scrounge they were obviously there to see the talent on show.

Sadly the game ended in a 3-1 defeat. The Morlands were obviously not on form on the night and the only winning rink came from Simon Brodie, Richard Copeland and Ken Wood.

Scott Morland quoted “the next six motnhs at work is gonna be rough, thank god thats the last game of the season!”

Saturday see the first game of the season indoor in the Triples where Bev Turnbull will be joining the Mechtool Rink. We hope for better things this year and our South Park rink are looking towards the title.

We were ready and raring to go away to Whessoe at North Park last Friday.
Terrential rain had us all running for shelter until 7.30pm. The rain then stopped the green was holding and draining well.

Sadly Whessoe refused to bowl, all games by standard practice should only be cancelled by mutual agreement or the green declared unbowlable. The green was fine and the rain was non-existent from 7.35pm until 8.25pm. No Whessoe bowler checked the green and all players point blank refused to play, should we get 4 points??!!!!! - I think so.

Lets see what happens in a league with no set rules and a secretary who is a member of Whessoe BC!!

Watch this space! - with Cummins not showing up last week as their superstars weren’t available and Whessoe refusing to play, should this be the end of the Works League, it seems nobody wants to bowl in it!

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.

We have now received the fixtures for both the District and Works League and some tricky games lay ahead at the start of the season.

The District League conjures up 4 incredibly tough games against Leeholme, the RA, Spennymoor A and Shildon BR. All of these games are ones we usually don’t pick up many points against.

To try and avoid the bottom 2 we must pick up at least 8 points from these to get our season off to a good start.

The Works League has given us 2 knock-out games away from home to the 2 probably strongest teams in Cummins and Alpha Plus. Fingers crossed at least one of our teams can scrape through then we have a good hance against other opposition is the draw works in our favour.

Despite a calamity of events our Mech-Tool B Team hammered the A.

A delayed kick-off due to late arrivals caused many problems but eventually both sides had full teams which saw the debut of Ian Lidster in the B Team who despite being beaten had an excellent debut vary much helped with great thanks by George Fenley and John Beaumont.

Scott Morland with Peter Boyle and Sandra Hopkins had the only winning rink so it ended 3-1 to the B Team.

Tonight is the big game, our A & B Teams meet. All player tonight play for pride - watch out for war!!