Angus heads to Nottingham after victory in disability singles title
Following on from his selection for the Disability Bowls England (DBE) indoor high performance squad, former Sunderland bowler Stevie Angus, now playing out of Stanley, won the DBE B7 Singles title, beating York’s Helen Wood in the final.
The Stanley star will head to Nottingham in March for the champion of champions event. Angus’s return to the England set-up will see him compete in the Para Indoor Home Nations event at Newport in late April.
The latter stages of the mixed pairs and mixed fours competition were held at St Neots last weekend. Locally, squads from the South Shields Vipers were carrying the region' s hopes. In the mixed fours, Jackie Stewart Tallack, Maureen Charles, Jaxon McKenna and Paul Hartley were left to wonder what might have been. An opening last-16 28-15 win over Pine Rivers' Peter Ward was then backed up with an equally impressive quarter-final 23-11 win over Gallow’s Daniel Cawthorne. In the semi-final Hartley faced Egham’s Barry Jenkins, who had previously won it some 21 years ago. As expected, the semi-final was a tight affair with the sides locked together at the five and 15-end mark. It came as no surprise that they were still locked together going into the final end 16-16, and with Hartley lying three down his final running bowl held off and the Vipers dropped a trebletogodown19-16.Inthefinal theEghamqu art et were beaten 18-9 by Exonia’s Nicole Rogers.
In the mixed pairs, Pat Browne and Gary Farquhar had a tough draw facing S wale’ s Imogen Jenner and England star Harry Goodwin in the last 16, which finished 15-7 to the Swale pair. The eventual winners were IIminster’s Kirsty and Levi Hembrow, who beat Torquay Utd’s Sam Tolchard 20-18 in the final.
In area two, Gateshead’s Ronnie Richardson secured a place at Nottingham in the over-60s singles after beating Hartlepool’s Albert Ward 21-17. There was better news for the Hartlepool club in the family pairs as Ben and Paul Mosley beat the Vipers' Shaun and Ian McIntosh 18-15 to qualify
for the latter stages at Nottingham. In the last 16 Mosley will face York’s Alex and Nathan Richards.
Hartlepool’s talented youngster Amica Fordy beat Durham’s Joan Brown 21-14 in the area final; the Hartlepool star will face Cumbria’s Lesley Me tc al feint he last 16 at Nottingham.There was more good news for the Hartlepool club as Devon Cooper and Danielle Martinson beat Durham’s ArleneStafford17-14intheareafinal of the pairs. Martinson will face Dolphin’ s Penny Cress well in the last 16 at Nottingham. In the triples area final, the Vipers' Maureen Charles went down 20-13 to Aycliffe’s Sue Young; the Aycliffe squad have been handed a tough opener at Nottingham against Swales
Wendy King. Looking at the triples event, some areas have to play three or four rounds to qualify, however area one only had two entries and even then one conceded, meaning the sole entry goes straight into the national finals without playing a game; sadly due to the location and lack of entries there is no easy solution. West Den ton’ s Ann Lennie beat Durham’s EileenHoran17-2intheareafinal of the over-50 triples.
Durham County are in Liberty Trophy action today as they head to Erewash to face Cambridgeshire for a place in the final. The two counties met at the same stage and venue two years ago when Durham came out on top 114-82. From the Durham line-up that beat Lincolnshire in the last eight, team manager Hartlepool’s Dave Kilner has made a couple of changes. The Hartlepool duo of Car land Mark Higgins return to the line-up after missing the quarter-final, club mate Jonny Forcer is available and goes lead for Paul Mosley with Ben Mosley dropping to the bench. The other semi-final will see Devon take on Sussex.
Gateshead’s over-60s double fours squad are in action this week as they look to secure a semi-final place. On Tuesday they tackle Grantham in the quarter-finals.
Houghton women bring down the curtain on their inter-clubcampaign on Wednesday as they tackle South Shields Vipers.
At Houghton - J.Classen, JB.Smith, E.Faith,
V.Bambrough, J.Watt, M.Eggleston, S.Forster, J.Rodgerson.
At Shields - M.Hall, E.Barkes, K.Sinclair, N.Stephenson, M.Godfrey, L.Breheny, B.Robson, J.Baker.
Houghton will host the Durham County HVPs in their annual friendly on Sunday 19 March at 1pm.
In the inter-county club senior play-offs, the quarterfinal draw will see a repeat of last year’ s final when Hough ton Sancroft and Great Aycliffe lock horns again; the latter may be slight favourites to avenge that loss as they get home advantage after topping their group winning all six games and only dropping a couple of rink points in the process. The semi-finals and final will take place at Darlington on 30/31 March.
Full draw – Great Aycliffe vH ought on San croft, HartlepoolAvH art le pool B, St an leyv Darling to nB, Durham B vD arlington A.
The date for the inter-club play-off has been changed to Sunday 2 April at Ferryhill (1.30pm); Houghton will face Hartlepool, the latter securing their place with a final game 8-2 win over Darlington.
There was some sad news for the local bowls scene this week as Sunderland’s Rod Campbell (84) sadly passed away. Rod had been battling illness for a while but was still actively playing, he was a good member of the Ashbrookebased outdoor club and will be missed by many.