Hanwood finally return with a record victory

Robert Burroughs October 2, 2015 Breaking News, News 2,358 Views

Hanwood tonight finally returned to the Flowfit Shropshire Premier Bowling League at the 6th attempt as they comprehensively beat Archibald Worthington by 46 shots with 10 winners. Hanwood never looked back as Autumn Waterloo Champion Greg Smith led them off with a 21-7 win in the corners over John Digby, but with Wayne Phillips 18-3 down against Greg Fordham and having deja vu after getting 3 in last year’s playoff, it looked like that would be cancelled out, especially with Greg playing exceptionally well on a 35m mark. But Wayne fired the jack off twice and then got himself back to 18-12 before Greg ran out. Hanwood joint captain Mark Parsons was always in front against Les Markham using little round pegs to his advantage, but from 14-10 up he sealed a 12 victory to cancel out Wayne’s card. Tony Hotchkiss stormed out the blocks 8-1 but Rob Adams closed it to 9 across and led 15-13 before Tony ran out on this 35 m diagonally over the crown to give Hanwood a lead of 23 off the first four.

Archie knew that they needed a quick response and with Alan Ball they did, as he played very well on this 30m round peg to lead Russ Wellings 13-4 and maintained this advantage to win 9 and close the gap to 11 and give Archie hope, and with them being well in the other games looked like they could close the gap further. But Hanwood’s joint captain Ash Wellings always led former Archie captain John Paddington after a good start on the shorter marks, but John played very well to close the gap as he extended the length but could never quite get ahead of Ash as he played out some stunning shots in the best game of the night and won 16. The other two games in the middle were being very close affairs with Dave Burton leading Ian MacDonald 12-10 and Nick Davies 14 across with Archie captain Dave Gourlay and could have gone either way. But Dave virtually ran out diagnonally over the middle to win 12 and Nick won 15 in the corners to give Hanwood a 28 shot lead going into the back four.

Hanwood knew that no bad cards meant they were taking their place in next season’s Premier League and so this materialised. Joint captain Mark Shore led the way leading Matt Benbow 15-6 in the corners but Danny Wornell was 14-1o down against Dave Ridgway with the other two games just started. As Mark led 19-10 and Danny 16 across , and with Carl Bowers 10-8 up and Phil Price 9-7 up, Hanwood only needed a few chalks to cement their place in 2016, and with Danny Wornell’s 2 and Mark Shore’s 1 a few minutes later they sealed the win. Mark came off winning 12 and Danny won 17 to start off the celebrations. Carl Bowers then edged out Jack Hewitt in a good quality game 19 and Steve Heath came back against Phil Price to get 17 and give Hanwood the biggest win ever in a Playoff match, beating the 44 shot win that Ford gained over Bylet back in 2001.

So the Flowfit Shropshire Premier Bowling League would like to welcome Hanwood back to the Premier league after an 19 year absence and offer commiserations to Archibald Worthington, one of our founder members back in 1994, and wish them all the best in their quest to get back into the league.

The league would like to thank Allscott bowling club for hosting the event so excellently, and to Roger Griffin for referring and Mike Potter for measuring and taking the pictures. There will be more pictures from Mike and his report will put on this site tomorrow night. I would also like to thank my Dad for helping update the scores on Facebook and Twitter for me as I didn’t have enough internet signal at Allscott.

Full scores:

1 LMarkham 12 v M Parsons 21

2 J Digby 7 v G Smith 21

3 G Fordham 21 v W Phillips 12

4 R Adams 15 v T Hotchkiss 21

5 J Paddington 16 v A Wellings 21

6 A Ball 21 v R Wellings 9

7 I Macdonald 12 v D Burton 21

8 D Gourlay 15 v N Davies 21

9 D Ridgway 17 v D Wornell 21

10 M Benbow 13 v M Shore 21

11 J Hewitt 19 v C Bowers 21