Written by Charles Wright.
With The Budget complete and Christmas approaching, time for an early season round-up of the County & National comps for Gullivers members. If bowls is to survive, and many of you know that my view is that it is a dying game, then players must support competitions or else there will be no comps other than at club level and OSC events. Maybe that is the way ahead, maybe not.
In SCIBA events, club champion Martin Biggleston had an exciting 21-17 win over Mick Rew (Wealden) in the Singles and then teamed up with Charles Wright and Rob Harris to travel to Uckfield and defeat Rew again in the Triples 21-12. Unfortunately, Harris lost at Preston 6-21 to an in form Andy Spencer whilst Steve Judd won 21-18 against another Wealden member, Trevor Koster.
In the County Unbadged Singles, Judd then defeated Jon Spittles (Falaise) 21-19 to progress to round 2.
In EIBA 'national' events the team of Wright, Ken Ferguson, Biggles & Harris travelled to Falaise and lost 9-19 to a strong team skipped by Rob Morphett. With only four ends to play there were only 3 shots difference, but two poor ends for the Gullivers team was their undoing.
In the Triples, John Gray, Wright & Harris lost 15-21 to Neil Hoad (Eastbourne) and Michael Knights, Ferguson & Judd went down 5-21 to Morphett at Falaise.
The Pairs saw an exciting game at Knole Road, when Wright & 'Biggles' defeated Kieron Jay/Lee Dickson (Falaise) 16-14 in a game that could have swung either way. All four players were on top form and Dickson was unlucky when he played two good shots, only to witness a bad result on each end, conceding an unlikely 4 and a 2.
Ferguson & Judd again played Morphett in the Pairs and went down 10-20.
In the Singles, Biggles lost 5-21 at Falaise to Mike Stone and Harris lost 16-21 to Alec Martin in the national O60 Singles. The O60 Pairs saw Wright/Biggles lose 6-17 at Falaise to Trevor Logan/Alec Martin.
There are still may comps to be played off and Gullivers is hoping for more success when the Christmas lights come down, assuming anyone can afford to pay for the electric anymore.