Thank you to Team Manager Mike Potter for the report on the Veterans County Championship Qualifier below.
Shropshire Crown Green Bowling Association – Veterans Team Championship
Thursday 13th July, 2023 at Haunchwood BC, North Midlands.
The Shropshire’s Veterans squad, selectors and manager left the North Midlands venue of Haunchwood BC knowing that missed opportunities had cost them dear in their quest to qualify for this year’s finals day of the BCGBA’s Veterans 8-a-side Team Championship.
The squad arrived at Haunchwood BC filled with optimism and wanting to make the finals day and go a step further than last year’s tournament where we ended as runners up. With most of the squad having never seen it before, we knew the day would be difficult and challenging with us facing the host county, North Midlands, in our first match.
On a mild Summer’s day, we joined our fellow group teams from North Midlands, Staffordshire and Warwick & Worcester.
Knowing, winning the first match would put us on a good footing to achieving our goal of qualifying, we began the day facing North Midlands in the “3 on the card” 8-a-side round robin tournament that saw Wayne Rogers run out from 15-12 as did Mark Holland from 11-13. Turning his game on its head, Derek Wright, from 5-16 down also ran out 21-16. Evenly matched games had Glyn Herbert and Phil Lyttle narrowly missed out going down 17-21 along with Mark Thomas, 15-21. As Andy James struggled with the variable weight to go down 8-21, Ian Gaut was cancelling that out as from 5-5 he added another run out card that would see us our first win of the day winning by 10 chalks.
Meanwhile, Warwick & Worcester were seeing off Staffordshire by 13 chalks.
Our second match against Warwick & Worcester did not go well for us as Paul Williams 5-21 & Phil Lyttle 12-21 & Mark Thomas 15-21. But with a good fight back from 10-17 by Wayne Rogers, 16-21 and “knife edge” down the card from Mark Holland 20-21 and two 21-14 cards from Derek Wright & Ian Gaut, as well as Glyn Herbert’s 21-10 win, kept the deficit down as we lost by 12 chalks.
Meanwhile, North Midlands were ending Staffordshire’s chances by defeating them by 20 and give themselves the slimmest hope of progressing if they could overcome Warwick & Worcester.
After two matches completed, we stood in third place which meant, nothing other than a small win for North Midlands over Warwick & Worcester and a big chalk win for us against Staffordshire would see us top the group.
Our third and final match would see us share the winning cards with Staffordshire that saw Glyn Herbert 13-21 and Dave Redge 10-21 that were matched by Derek Wright 21-12 and Mark Holland 21-13 and Wayne Rogers 21-16.
Meanwhile, Warwick & Worcester were enjoying their best result of the day, defeating North Midlands by 43 chalks that saw them qualify for the finals day in August. Congratulations.
After two more games cancelled out each other, Mark Thomas 19-21 and Phil Lyttle 21-19 the outcome fell to our last man, Ian Gaut. Needing to get 19 for the match, Ian kept his cool and from 14-20 down, got hold of the jack and kept it long enough to get the chalks (19-21) required for us to secure our second match victory and the consolation of finishing runners up. Won by 1 chalk.
Results are here.
