News 2018
A combination of illness and holidays meant only twelve club members took part in the Matthews Plate ladies' and men's drawn pairs competitions. Luckily there were six men and six ladies, allowing a simple three-team round-robin league in each competition played in blistering sunshine. Each pair played the other two over eight ends of four bowl pairs.
Interestingly the winners of the first games were scheduled to sit out the second round, thus avoiding the possibility of a "dead rubber" in the last round. Instead both third round matches became de-facto finals.
In the ladies competition the last match saw Liz Caird and Sheila Payne, with a win already under their belt, play Frances Hill and Thelma Stanley who had drawn their first game. Fine leading from Liz, backed up by skip Sheila, saw them power away to a 10-1 lead at the half-way point and though Frances and Thelma rallied the deficit was too great and Liz and Sheila ran out winners 12-7.
In the men's competition both teams in the final game had already secured a win. Strong leading from Colin Meadows, supported by skip Mike Hubbard, gave them the edge over Frank Hill and Quentin Smith and they scored a string of singles and twos to complete a comfortable 9-1 win with an end to spare (a draw would not have been enough for Frank and Quentin due to Colin & Mike's superior shot difference from the first game).
Liz, Sheila and Mike have all won the competition before, but it was a welcome first win for Colin.
Our photos show the winners receiving their trophies from President Thelma Stanley.