Despite the inclement weather, 20 members took part in the Club’s first singles handicap of the season on Sunday 14th April. It was particularly pleasing to see several new members competing for The Rose Bowl.
The early rounds provided some interesting games, one of which saw Barry Coates scrape home 21-20 against David Bedford, who was having to concede a handicap of 4. This must have inspired Barry, as he then produced some impressive form to defeat three previous handicap winners in Brian Jones (21-14), Kevin Leddy (21-11) and in the semi-final, last year’s Rose Bowl winner, Richard Rawcliffe (21-12).
The bottom half of the draw saw a notable performance by Ray Sutton, who comfortably overcame new member Brian Coleman with a 21-10 success. This win saw Ray progress to the semi-finals where he was up against Jim Halsall, who had reached this stage with wins against Dave White (21-11) and Pat Jones (21-12).
In the semi-final, Ray could not maintain his earlier form and it was Jim who won 21-15 to go through to the final to play his good friend Barry.
In the final, it was Barry who started off well, scoring a couple of 2s to establish an 11-7 lead. At this stage though, Jim found his form and won 7 out of the next 9 ends to build up a commanding lead of 19-13 and although Barry rallied to close the gap to 17-20, it was Jim who edged a close final 21-17.
Congratulations to Jim Halsall on winning his first Club competition, having only taken up league bowling last season and also to Barry on reaching the final with some excellent performances.”