CLUB FINALS DAY REPORT

Club Finals Day at Malshanger began with dry weather and our Competition Secretary Kay keeping her fingers crossed that the afternoon's forecast rain would not materialise. With both Nicole Rogers and Ric Newson through to 3 finals the programme was spread over three separate sessions and both began their quests for a hat trick with their respective single gender Singles. Ric was up against the holder 16 year old Ashley Nethercliffe and with the scores tied at 12-12 it looked as if Ric might pick up his fourth Men's Singles title. Ashley, however, at this stage moved up a gear and four ends later had won 21-12. With one title, having gone to a junior it was now a question of whether 17 year old Nicole Rogers could do the same. In most eyes, she started as the underdog against the vastly experienced Mary Varndell, the club champion on 5 previous occasions, and when Mary recovered from a 0-7 deficit to lead 10-7 the pundits expected her experience would enable her to prevail. They were wrong, Mary scored on only one more end and Nicole became the club's youngest ever Ladies' Champion, like Ashley within two years of beginning to play outdoors. The third game of the first session saw Ted Trantum storm to a 20 shots to 3 lead over Duncan Wilkins in the Men's Acorn Novice Singles Final. Duncan, however, did not give up without a fight and by the time he had pulled back to 14-20 Ted must have been having flashbacks to last year when he let go a very large lead. This time, however, he managed after six ends to secure the one shot needed for victory.

Nicole and Ric now went back on the green for the second games and Nicole, in the Ladies Acorn Novice Singles, had a comfortable victory beating Elaine Turner playing in her firsr ever final. Ric playing Trevor Wearn in the Open Singles (Open because both gender play in it) also had a convincing win landing his second such title.

A break for lunch and then it was back on the green for the last two finals where pairs partners Spencer Kerley and Ric Newson did battle in the Two Wood Singles with Spencer coming out on top16-11. The most exciting game of the day was, however, the Mixed Pairs Final where two of our juniors, Nicole, still on course for the treble, and Ashley took on Angie Rowe, in her first club final, and Fred Norris. The juniors struck early picking up a four on the second end but the scores were tied by 6 ends and again at 10 and 12 ends. A five for the juniors saw them move away but by 15 ends it was again all square. Two threes for Angie and Fred saw them into a lead of 4 with 3 ends left. The juniors then tied the game at 19 ends and having established a strong position on the penultimate end seemed set for victory only for Fred to produce the perfect draw to save the game and a two on the last end gave Angie and Fred a Narrow win, in what was an excellent game to close the day. Congratulations to all the competitors on giving us a fascinating day and how lucky we were to avoid the rain that fell out of the sky in so many places.