Isle of Man County Crown Green Bowling Association

The final of the Canada Life International sponsored Inaugural Mixed Team Plate competition took place at Onchan on Wednesday evening with Noble’s and Ballaugh battling to become the first winners of this competition. With an excellent crowd in attendance there were over 110 people there in the latter stages of the evening.

From the first three games on the green Noble’s struck the biggest blow of the night with Stephen Corkill winning 21-5 against John Kneen, with Joyce Ogden followed this up using all her guile to see off Patrick Grant 21-15. Jayne Smith leapt into a commanding lead against John Maddrell, only for the latter to stage a huge comeback to level the game at 20-20. With Maddrell lying game, Smith bowled in to sneak home 21-20. With three games played Noble’s had a commanding 23 chalk lead.

Ballaugh threatened a comeback with Louise Tebay putting in a fine performance to see off Dave Naughton 21-5 to reduce the deficit to just seven chalks.

With the pressure off Ballaugh claimed the last two games of the night with Dickie Watson beating Phil Salmon 21-10, while Michele Cubbon shone with a solid 21-11 win over Grahem Moore.

With the win secured by 18 chalks (152-134) Noble’s won 6-3 on games with the club members clearly delighted with most of them picking up their first silverware. Noble’s have been through the mill over the past couple of years, first losing their Ladies Team, along with their Over 60’s Men’s Team. In addition to this the club were struggling to put out a night league team, at one point over the winter the club were on the brink of collapsing. Thanks to the efforts of the club members they managed to field two Men’s night league teams, recruiting a number of new bowlers over the winter, with many of them taking to bowls like a duck to water, showing some real promise in their first season of bowls.

The efforts go beyond this with a new outlook from the newer club members, with social nights being enjoyed regularly under their newly installed floodlights. Noble’s are now rumoured to be looking to field a third night league team next season, they were grateful to be able to field a team in the Mixed Team competition. The next step for the club will be to reintroduce a Ladies night league team as they look to go from strength to strength. Noble’s are one of the oldest clubs on the Island and to allow it to collapse would be catastrophic for the local game, with the Noble’s greens being the focal point for the June and September Bowling Festivals, which are showing signs of returning numbers following one of the largest entries in recent years in June.

The presentation was made by Association Chairman Neil Withers who thanked Onchan for the use of the green, Noble’s captain Tina Hampson congratulated her team for their performance on the night and offered commiserations to Ballaugh, whilst also saying after everything the club had been through it was great to win a final with the club narrowly missing out in the Rayner Plate recently.

Noble’s			Ballaugh
Jayne Smith	21	20	John Maddrell
Joyce Ogden	21	15	Patrick Grant
Stephen Corkill	21	5	John Kneen
Dave Naughton	5	21	Louise Tebay
Sylvia Kennaugh	21	10	Rose Waterworth
Mark Bradshaw	21	10	Tony Quine
Tina Hampson	21	11	Maria Dimsdale
Phil Salmon	10	21	Dickie Watson
Grahem Moore	11	21	Michele Cubbon
6 Games Won	152	134	3 Games Won