County competition wins for Alexandra and Waterlooville bowlers

The difference between the two tournaments is that the winners of County Competitions don’t progress to the National Finals at Leamington, writes DAVE WILDMAN.

The East County semi-finalists are as follows:

Golden Pairs

This is a new competition for the men and has been introduced to match the same competition run for the women.

It is a pairs competition where both players have to be aged 70 and over and is played over 18 ends.

The honour of being the first East finalists fell to the Waterlooville pairing of Brian LeMarquer and Derek Holt who beat Portsmouth Water duo Dave Denyer and Peter Higgins in the area

The Ville pair got off to an excellent start, moving into a 15-4 lead after eight ends. At that point, the Water pairing obviously had got to grips with the green as they picked up eight shots over the next five ends to cut the deficit to three.

But the next end undid all their good work as they dropped a seven which ended any hope of winning the game, Ville running out 27-14 winners.

2Wood Triples

This competition (played over 21 ends) has been run for many years now and this year’s final was between members from old rivals Alexandra and Southsea Waverley, who met at Cosham Park.

The Waverley triple of Rob Moran, Tony Ingram and Ollie Mew started well, moving into a 6-1 lead by the fifth end.

But the Alex trio of Ian Rixon, Neil Scutt and Carl Baggott fought back so that by the end of the 12th end, the match was level at 11-11.

Alex then picked up seven shots on two of the next three ends to lead 18-12, whereupon both teams swapped scores so that by the end of the 19th end Alex led 20-18.

They then picked up a three on the 20th end which meant that the Waverley triple had to score five shots on the last to tie the game. They couldn’t manage it, losing 25-18.

County Club

The final County competition is the County Club.

This year’s final, played on the excellent green at Lee-on-the-Solent, was between Alexandra and Fareham.

And the match turned on what happened on the two outside rinks as the middle two rinks were very tight affairs, which ended with one being tied and the other won by Fareham by a single shot.

This was in contrast to what was going on in the other two rinks. On the first, the Alex rink skipped by Don Lilley was 15-5 over Charlie Bailey’s Fareham rink after 13 ends.

Charlie’s men reduced the gap to 18-15 by the 19th end, but the Alex quartet kept their nerve to run out 19-17 winners

Meanwhile, on the other rink, the Fareham quartet skipped by Lee Cunningham had raced into a 10-1 lead after six ends. Steve Feilder’s Alex rink, though, levelled at 11-11 by the 12th end. They scores were still level after 17 ends, at which point Feilder’s men took control of the match to triumph 20-14.

This meant Alex were overall winners by 74-67.