South Ramsey A retained the Division One title by beating Port St Mary A 6-4. South have been a dominant force all season and fully deserve to win back to back trophies and will look forward to competing in the 2018 World Club Challenge and going for a hattrick of wins next season.

Marown A pushed hard in the second half of the season to chase down South Ramsey but despite their best efforts settle for second place finishing eight points behind the champions.

Onchan A had already guaranteed third position but Douglas A, Port St Mary A and Peel Sunset A were all fighting for fourth position.

Peel slipped to a 8-2 defeat away to Onchan A leaving them to finish sixth. Douglas A picked up a 8-2 win over North Ramsey A but crucially Port St Mary A picked up four points in their defeat at South Ramsey A pipping Douglas by a single point to claim fourth position.

Castletown B finish bottom following their 8-2 loss at Marown A but Ballaugh A, Douglas B or Port Erin A could still finish in the bottom two. Douglas B sat out Wednesday having already completed all their matches so were sweating on the results from their relegation rivals.

Port Erin A who with only a few games to go were rock bottom found good form in their final few matches finishing the season off by defeating South Ramsey B 7-3 and keeping them in the top flight.

That left Ballaugh A, they went to Castletown A knowing they needed three points to jump Douglas B and save their season. On the night they lost two games 21-18 and another 21-17 and could only manage two wins losing 8-2 on the night and leaving them with Castletown B at the bottom.

Colin Kelly collected the division one merit on the final day of the season with David Bradford finishing second and Trevor Quayle third.

Marown B had already confirmed themselves as Champions and finished the season with a 5-5 draw at Peel Sunset B. Onchan B finished seven points behind the men from Crosby with Nobles B third and a further 20 points back.

Nobles B have enjoyed much success this season incredibly finishing nine points ahead of their A team. In their final matches Nobles B went down 7-3 away to Port St Mary B and Nobles A defeated Port Erin B 9-1.

Douglas C finish bottom along with Onchan C.

The division two merit came right down to the wire and Steve Crampton finished top of the shop signing his season off with a 21-9 victory. Kerry ‘Bod’ Boland finished second.

Division three had a great finale with Ballaugh C leading the division by two points ahead of Peel Sunset C. With both teams having one hand on the trophy the fixture list happened to throw them together on the last night of the season.

Ballaugh travelled to Sunset City and the match was close, only separated by eight chalks but it was Peel who won 7-3 and took the third division trophy.

The division three merit was also just as close, Dave Smith led the way but three other people were waiting to pounce should he have lost. Away at Ballaugh B Dave won 21-7 and collected the merit in only his second season of league bowls.

So the curtain has fallen on another fantastic season of league bowls. We thank our Sponsors Ellan Vannin Fuels for their continued support along with all the people behind the scenes that help with the running of the league.

An Entry of 32 players (16 pairs) played at Port St Mary Bowling Club.

The 32 players were split into 2 groups, A and B, based on the league merit tables and which league the individuals play in, with group A being mostly 1st division bowlers.

One player was drawn from each group to make up the teams. This made for many close matches in every round of the competition, including the final which was won 21 – 20 by Jordan Cain & Nathan Hamilton against James Teare & Glenn Boland.

Losing at the semi-final stages were Alan Moore & Tom Collins and Glynn Hargraves & Derek Kneen.

With the weather also behaving itself, a very enjoyable afternoon was had by all.

At the Presentation, the President Of P.S.M. Bowling Club Ken Karran thanked the sponsors Friends Provident, the greenkeeper Ewan Cooil, the Ladies catering team, and everyone else that helped on the day.

Ken Karran then introduced Katy Williams of Friends Provident to present the prizes.

This open was added to this season’s schedule after some extra dates became available. After a lot of good feedback on the day from the players and spectators it is hoped that event will go ahead again next season.

The traditional curtain-raiser to the week-long Bowling Festival took place on Sunday on a fast and tricky Castletown playing surface. The event has taken an upsurge in popularity in recent years which has prompted the organisers to limit the entries to 96 and from this star studded field it was a previous Festival winner Mark Hughes from the Crossgates club in Leeds who took the honours beating Nicky Burridge from the Wirral 21-16 in a see-saw, quality final.

In the final stages which were dominated by visiting bowlers Hughes had beaten Ian Johnson (Calow BC, Derbyshire) in one semi while Rishton’s Mick Lee fell to Burridge in the other.

Only one local bowler reached the last 8, South Ramsey’s Glynn Hargraves, while the other losing quarter finalists were Wayne Jeavons (Wirral), John Colebourne (Calow) and Keith Middleton from Chapel Park BC.

At the end of the prestigious competition the home Club’s President Ron Williams mentioned how grateful the club was to Denny Oates and his daughter Kath Kinley for organising the event and he also thanked the club members who had worked through the day.

He finally spoke about the magnificent sponsorship provided by Friends Provident International before introducing company official, and local sportsman, Adam Drewett to present the prizes.

The first of the pre-festival opens The Jim Kernan Cup was held in glorious weather on a fantastic South Ramsey green that got quicker throughout the day. The competition attracted an entry of 48 bowlers, which was half price entry for Over 60’s and free for Juniors.

The winner was John Kennish, who mastered the green and made it a staggering 11th time that he has picked up the trophy on his home green.

Losing out at the quarter-final stage were home greeners Steven Waters, David Bradford and Glynn Hargraves, along with visiting bowler Keith Turton.

In the semi-final Kennish ended the challenge of visitor Roger Lunn.
In the other semi-final home greener Dido Kelly booked his place in the final by defeating Edward Carlyle (Onchan).

In a good quality final Kelly got off to a good start against Kennish, before Kennish turned the game round to go 16-12 up. Kelly then dug in to pull the score back to 15-16, before Kennish rallied to see the game out 21-16.

The presentation was made by Steve Moore, who thanked the sponsor George Brew and his family, those who helped run the competition and the Ladies for the excellent refreshments throughout the day. This was the first open that South Ramsey have held using their new clubhouse.

Thanks to Gary Weightman for the photos

The Paddy Power sponsored Isle of Man Senior Men’s county team took the greens for the final time this year and fell just short of finding their first illusive overall victory.

They took on a very strong Derbyshire team both at Castletown and away in Burton on Trent and despite losing out in both legs can draw many positives from another brilliant display at the highest level.

It was an emotional day all round for both counties as they spent the match was dedicated to the memory of both our own Lillian Slinger and Derbyshires Darren Smith, two of the finest exponents our sport at seen.

It had almost become the norm for the Manxmen to win their home leg, having done so on the last three occasions, and the performance of the visitors to stop them was a stark reminder of just how hard bowls is at the top table.

Gellings home man of the match Phil Kerruish was the only local winner in the first four and he was simply magnificent as he beat Belvedere’s ‘Matt Kelly-Walley 21-13. Paul Stretton (Belvedere) won the Endsleigh Insurance player of the leg award for his 21-12 win against Peter Collister.

There was more success in the next four blocks as the Isle of Man added two more victories with Port St Mary’s Ewan Cooil winning 21-12 against Chris Adams (Burbage) and John Kennish fighting his way back with a brilliant performance to win 21-19 over John Dewey (Belvedere).

David Bradford added his name to the winners list playing extremely well to beat Paul Hawker (Whaley Brodge) 21-15. That was in for the locals on home soil as they went down 8 games to 4 and by 30 points.

Across he water something quite remarkable was happening as the men in red in yellow put in their finest away team performance to date and at one point and unprecedented away leg victory looked on the cards, however they lost out by just four points overall.

Barney Kelly led from the front with a totally assured Captains performance to put the Isle of Man 1-0 up as he beat Dave May 21-17. Neil Withers lost out by the narrowest of margins in the next game going down 21-20 before Jordan Cain righted the ship with another inspired away county performance beating Conor Chamberlain 21-18.

The Island didn’t have to wait too long for their next win as Rob Monk was in truly sensational form to win 21-9 against Neil Worthington and pick up the Endsleigh Insurance Man of the match awards for his efforts. I can’t put into words how well he played and I am sure he made his grandma Lillian proud with his breathtaking performance.

Matthew Quirk and Peter Slinger both came close, scoring 20 and 19 respectively, before Paul Skelly picked up his first county win and the Isle of Man award for man of the match after a spirited performance to fend off the battling Mick Grattan 21-19.

Phil ‘Rambo’ Kelly is fast becoming the patriarch of the Isle of Man team and he put in another stunning display last man on to beat arguably Derbyshires best player Paul Chamerlain 21-15. To put this into perspective Chamberlain has won his other two home matches this year 21-4 and 21-6. Five wins, two 20’s and a 19 is not just competing away from home it is showing that we really can mix it with the best. I am sure it will not be too long before our stars align both at home and away to bring us the overall match victory we so desperately want to see. A massive thank you to sponsors Paddy Power, Castletown for hosting the match and anyone else who helped in any way.