Trio’s champion effort earns British title success
Thirty years ago three Crowtree-based lads were crowned British champions.
Following the Sunderland trio of Richie Mckie, Jimmy Lambert and Gary Smith’s national triples title success in1991atMeltonMowbraythe following year they made the 260-mile trek to Aberdeen to represent England in the British Isles Championships.
They missed the preliminary tie so the trio faced Wales in an early morning semifinal.Despiteaslowstart Smith steered them to a 20-10 win thanks to a couple of late counts.
In the final they faced one of Scotland’s newest young stars Angus Blair on an end rink with a stand full of vociferous Scottish supporters.
The early exchanges saw the Wearsiders only score on two of the opening seven ends but they only trailed 8-6, after winning a single on the eighth end they made a game changing decision and changed the length, the mat went up the greenandthefinalwasturned on its head as the Smith trio only dropped two of the next eightendstotakean18-11lead.
With only three ends left and the Scottish support dampened the Sunderland trio were happy to drop a couple of singles to finish 19-13 winners.
ThiswasthesecondBritish Isles indoor title to return to Wearside after the 1982 pairs
titlewinbythelategreatJackie Barnes and Ted Hanger.
Returning to the British Isles 25 year later Smith, now playing out of the Stanley club alongside Brian Harris, Stevie AngusandDavidBoltlandeda second British Isles title.
It was a short trip as the championships were taking place on the quartet’s own green at Stanley. In the prelims they beat Ireland’s Gary McClory 23-15 which set up a semiagainsttheChannelIsles, a22-13winoverTomGreechan putthemintothefinalagainst Wales’ Jason Roberts.
InthefinaltheStanleylads raced into a 14-6 lead and despite being pegged back to 1410 they kept their nerve and eventually ran out comfortable 30-13 winners much to the delight of the Stanley crowd.
The Covid 19 pandemic is currently preventing any bowlsbeingplayedapartfrom the Channel Islands.
Withtheremainingnationalassociationsbeingunableto completetheirnationalchampionships the British Isles indoor championships already postponedfromMarch2021to October 2021 have again been
cancelled.
The complete calendar for 2020/21 has been moved forward 12 months to 2021/22 season, the age events namely the U18s and U25s have been increased for one year only to U19 and U26 to allow more playerstheopportunitytorepresent their country.
Hopes of some sort of a return to outdoor bowls are still highwiththemajorityofcounty associations planning for some sort of competitive play.
Bowls England are still accepting entries into their national competitions, over 55s
can still enter the senior singles and pairs, clubs can still put forward 2019 and 2020 champions for the champion ofchampions,entriesarealso still being taken in the family pairs, mixed pairs and mixed fours, entries can be made via the online portal with a final closing date of March 1.
There was some sad news for the South Hylton outdoor club as original Pyrex member Stan Samson (79) sadly passed away, he was a keen player and supporter of the gameandapopularclubmember.