The Men’s Northern Counties Championships took place last weekend on Saturday 2nd August and Sunday 3rd August at Silloth, Cumbria.
The Northern Counties Championship sees the champions of Cumbria, Durham, Lancashire, Northumberland, and Yorkshire play each other on a knockout basis in 4 Bowl Singles, Pairs, Triples, Fours, 2 Bowl Singles, and U24 Singles. The event also plays host to an inter-county mixed U24 rink played in a round-robin format. These championships are an ideal warm-up for our county winners as they set their sights on Leamington Spa for the Bowls England Aviva National Finals.
Saturday
Saturday morning would have saw our Fours winners; Alan Stewart, Karl Jameson, Matty Bishop, Gary Myerscough (ST) play Lancashire however a very last-minute drop out (10:22 PM the night before!) gave them a walkover to the finals. Unfortunately, they lost out to hosts Cumbria.
For scheduling reasons competitors can only represent their county in one discipline per day. This year’s U24 Singles winner, Matty Bishop (ST), who also had success in the Fours, couldn’t play in both. Fortunately, his Junior Pairs partner and our U24 runner-up, Luke Jameson, stepped up to fill the void. Luke certainly stepped-up playing nearly 40 ends in sunny Silloth finishing runner-up at the end of the day.
Saturday also saw the pairs champions play-off. Unfortunately, neither our winners nor runners-up could make it. Cumbria’s James Park and Alan Green (subbing for David Forster) were crowned champions.
Sunday
Sunday saw the day start with our U24 rink; Paul Shilton, Luke Jameson, Alex Scott, and Matty Bishop playing their first of 4 games. They got off to a great start winning 12-0 against Cumbria. Their second game against Yorkshire finished a draw. Game three had our rink play Lancashire’s boys rink. We were ahead through most of the game, but the score tightened to one up with one end to play. A great last bowl by Lancashire’s skip got them the two they needed to win the game. Lancashire, having won all three of their games so far looked set to take the overall win with only a game against Yorkshire left, but if Yorkshire (having won two and drawn one) won they would win the lot. We had Lancashire’s all girls team to play in the final game. Whether it was the fatigue of the day or the hour break they had between games our rink got off to a slow start (0-6 down at 3 ends), with games only being 7 ends, this didn’t leave them much time to find their earlier form again. Picking up a score on the last end had the game finish a draw. Of the four games: 1 win, 2 draws and a narrow loss had us finish on 4 points.
Wooler’s Brian Davidson, after a 3-hour drive, had a tough game against Durham’s Dave Newman in the 2 Bowl Singles. Trailing 6-12 at around the 13-end mark Brian closed the gap to 11-14 with ends running out. Unfortunately, Brian couldn’t make up the deficit and lost out. Dave went on to lose to Cumbria’s Huw Crosby in the final.
Finally for Northumberland saw 4 Bowl Singles runner-up Alan Stewart (ST) play Durham’s Higgins. This match was extremely hard-fought; Alan put in end after end of good bowls only to have them ping out halfway across the green by some precision takeouts followed up by touch perfect draws. Alan lost out in the end but did his club and Northumberland proud with the quality of his game. Higgins went on to win the Singles Championship beating Cumbria’s Forster in an exhibition match described as ‘like pulling teeth trying to get shot’.
The last discipline played on the day was the Triples. Again, Unfortunately, we weren’t represented in this event (neither were Cumbria or Durham) so that meant Yorkshire played Lancashire in the final. Yorkshire’s Morton, Coutts, and Brickley beat the Lancashire side to win their first Northern Counties Championship.
I’d like to thank our competitors and those who went to Silloth to support this event. The future of the Northern Counties Championship is uncertain due to concerns regarding declining player interest and increasing costs. Once discontinued, it is unlikely that the championship will be reinstated.