Arthur Brown writes ……Competitive bowling for the Spring/Summer season in South Alicante has finally come to a close with the final qualifying games of the Summer Knockout competition due to be completed by 23rd July.
The LLB South Alicante region has seen competition in the three divisions of the Triples leagues, the Men’s and Ladies 4 Wood Pairs leagues plus games in the early rounds of the Summer Knockout competition Semi Finals and Finals of which will be completed over the weekend 8th – 11th September.
The triples divisions started at the beginning of April with the last games being played on 14th July. This has been a very successful year for Vistabella Bowls Club who ran out winners of both the Spitfire ‘A’ division and the Hurricane ‘B’ division. The Vistabella Fairways won the ‘A’ division and the Vistabella Greeners won the ‘B’. In both divisions second place went to Quesada the Blenheims in the ‘A’ and the Quesada Lancasters in the ‘B’. The Harrier ‘C’ division was won by Horadada Hawks with El Rancho Buckskins second.
The Four Wood Pair’s leagues have been running since 2008 with separate leagues for Men’s and Ladies sides and comprise an individual entry of 6 players from the same club 4 players play each week, one team at home and one away, so any club may have more than one side in each league which Quesada have had this year with two men’s and two ladies sides in the line-up. In the Men’s league Quesada’s Derek Sale’s side retained the trophy they won last year but the Ladies league went right down to the wire with Sandra Burrows side from Vistabella needing two points to take the title from Quesada’s Deidre Leeming’s side.
Things appeared to be all sown up until despite leading comfortably in the away game one of the Vistabella players was affected by the heat and had to concede the game to the second Quesada team that they were playing against, fortunately Vistabella won the home game by 1 shot to get the 2 points they needed and to win the league by half a point.
The Summer Knockout Competition which has also been running for some time with history going back to 2007, is an individual entry competition with six different disciplines, Men’s and Ladies Singles and Pairs plus Mixed Pairs and Trips. By the time the finals are complete over 120 games will have been played. Quesada once again have been very strong across all disciplines with Peter Morgan leading the way having qualified for the Semi Finals of both Men’s singles and pairs plus the Mixed pairs so a busy weekend in September for Peter. Tom Morgan is also in the Men’s singles and pairs which he is playing with Peter.
Carol Broomfield and Jacquie Johnston also of Quesada have reached the semi’s in two disciplines, Carol in the Ladies singles and pairs and Jacquie in the Mixed pairs and trips. Anita Brown of San Miguel is the only other person to reach two semi’s who like Carol is in the Ladies singles and pairs.
The ladies singles should prove interesting with three San Miguel ladies in the semi-finals with Carol Rudge and Ann Eagle joining Anita and Carol, as will the Men’s singles where Peter and Tom Morgan are paired against Martin Foulcer of Vistabella, Spanish National Singles Champion in 2016 and Emerald Isles Drew Gerrard Valencian Singles Champion 2015 respectively. Things should prove very competitive in September when these games are brought to a conclusion at Vistabella Bowls Club all spectators welcome.
Arthur Brown
