Isle of Man County Crown Green Bowling Association

In glorious sunshine and on a much-improved green 37 any combination doubles bowlers played in the Lilian Slinger competition at Mooragh Park on Sunday afternoon. 

With some pairs having to play three games to reach the quarter final stage all four matches were well contested with Rob Monk (North Ramsey) and Matthew Quirk (Onchan) just edging out Marown pair Glenn Boland and Peter Jones 21-20. South Ramsey pair James Teare and Glynn Hargraves battled back from an 8-19 deficit to Marown duo Brian Kelly and James Kelly, with Teare and Hargraves lying two only for James to play a great bowl to split the two counting bowls and trail the jack to win the game 21-18. The home green pairing of Geoff Porter and Brian Colquitt just lost out 18-21 to the brother and sister pairing of Alan Moore and Jenny Moore, whilst another North Ramsey pair Allan Callow and Tony Smart lost to the same score to Eddie Carlyle (South Ramsey) and Les Brookes (Finch Hill).

At the semi-final stage it was the end of the road for the Marown all Kelly pairing as Monk and Quirk won 21-15 to book their place in the final, whilst the Moore’s won to the same score against Carlyle and Brookes.

The final was nip and tuck early on with neither pairing able to get a run, with the score 10-9 to Monk and Quirk after eight ends. The following end resulted in the Moore’s scoring a three, only for the North Ramsey/Onchan pair to respond by taking three of the next four ends as they also scored a three to take the lead 15-13. Six singles followed with Alan and Jenny winning four of the six ends to tie the score at 17-17.

On the 21^st end the South Ramsey pair were lying three, with Quirk having no option other than to strike, a clean hit of the bowl which was touching the jack which ricocheted several times before settling only to inexplicably still be three down to fall behind 17-20.

On the following end a great lead from Alan fell over kindly to sit directly behind the jack, only for the end to be disturbed, then killed when the jack was knocked off the green by their opponents. The next end proved to be the final end of the match with Alan again putting up a good lead, which Rob beat, only for this to be beat back once more. After a few efforts at taking out the counting bowl it was a 21-17 victory for the brother and sister pairing in what proved to be a great final for the watching crowd.

The presentation was made by Gary Lenton, who thanked the catering team for all the refreshments, Mike Skelly for running the sheet and the team for preparing a much-improved bowling green. The prizes were presented by Lilian’s daughter Janet, who sponsored the competition. In his speech Alan thanked North Ramsey for holding the competition, commenting on the ongoing improvement in the green, also went on to say it was nice to win with Jenny as they would have been arguing when they played together as kids!