The year 2007 saw the return of Bylet and with their home victory over Ifton in the last match of the season they survived the dreaded relegation play off in 13^th position. Interest in joining our league continues to be high with both Tanners league winners Pontesbury and Market Drayton winners District applying to take their place in the end of season play-offs.

The season started with St Georges favourites for major honours and Castlefields and Chester Road hoping to end their reign as champions.

St Georges opened their league campaign in emphatic fashion with a 14-0 home win over Archibald Worthington and after six matches they were already 15 points clear of the second placed side. Also enjoying a good start to the season were the early season surprise package of Roy Langford’s Childs Ercall who won their first four matches and were sitting proudly in second place, eventually finishing 11^th. St Georges were to suffer their first defeat at Meole Brace in June after a 10 match winning run. The gap at the top was nearly 30 points in August and eventual runners up, Castlefields finished 22 points behind. Chester Road finished strongly claiming third place with Meole Brace in fourth. The league’s most improved team in 2007 was Wem USC who finished in fifth position and proudly boast of the “local” players that make up the majority of their team.

The Alan Mayhew Trophy went to St Georges for the fourth time with a 228-198 victory over Shrewsbury based Castlefields in the final played, at Ellesmere in front of a disappointing crowd.  The former Shropshire County Selector and player, Chris Ball, was the recipient of the “Mike Hinton Man of the Match” award following his 21-11 win in the middle four.

On the individual front, the “Mike Hinton” pairs were held for the fourth year and was won by the by the Castlefields pairing of Simon Parsonage and Clay Flattley.  19 pairs took part, and after nearly 7 hours bowling, they overcame the Wem USC pairing of Derek Wright and Graham Dulson 21-20 in the final at The Bowring.  Peter Farmer, won the John Coxill Trophy for an unprecedented fourth time when he beat Paul Williams, Castlefields, 21-9 in the final held at Prees.  Chris Grocott won 22 games to lift the Neville Edwards Trophy and Meole Brace’s Colin Beaman and St Georges Kevin Keary both recorded 16 consecutive wins to share the other individual award.

The Premiership Play-Off’s format continued as an 8 a side competition and St Georges beat Chester Road in the final of the Pool A shield.  Ifton lifted the Pool B shield after defeating Sir John Bayley in the final at Coddon.

Last, but not least, the season finished with two play-off matches. Tanners league winners Pontesbury and Market Drayton winners District both applied for the play-offs and Pontesbury were comfortable victors at Donnington Wood. The play-off match with the bottom placed side, Newport, was to take place at Allscott. In front of another large and noisy crowd, Newport proved the stronger and with a clean sweep of the middle four they defeated Pontesbury by a margin of 10 chalks.

2007 Hall of Fame

2007 Season Final Table