News from 2021 - Lindfield Bowls Club

Club Finals results

Shirley Nelson and Julie Green Despite the grey, cheerless weather of this year's Finals Days, there was some excellent bowling on the Lindfield green.
In men's competitions Paul Sandford won the Championship 21-19 in a high quality battle with Guy Thornely.
Keith Holman had to work hard to score 24 shots to beat Kelvin Booth in the Handicap, Kelvin gave him a run for his money with some good attacking bowls early in the game.
In the 2 Wood Peter Colbourne won for the 3rd time in a hard-fought encounter with Alan Gardiner. Alan will feel hard done-by to lose the 100 Up to Peter Gacsall despite both players reaching 100 on the same end - due to the scoring system Peter won by reaching 100 before Alan's 4th bowl was counted. Alan had the consolation of a convincing win against David Walker in the Backbone.
The men's handicap pairs turned into an epic battle that lasted nearly 4 hours. David Highton and Peter Colbourne never looked to be in the game, 3-13 down to Anthony Gimson and Peter Page after 10 ends, they then went on a scoring spree, picking up 16 shots in 5 ends, before Page drew 3 excellent shots to narrow the gap to 21-19. The game eventually went to an extra end, Gimson stuck a front toucher on the jack that stayed there, giving them the win.
Peter Page also won the Butfoy mixed singles, just getting the better of Steve Gorringe 100 - 80.

2 wood triples finalists 2021

Bill Colbourne set a new Veteran's singles record, winning the trophy for the fifth time in a convincing display against an off-form Anthony Gimson.
In the ladies' competitions Carol Watson had a tough two days, losing four of her five finals, but crucially winning the Championship singles against Shirley Nelson, who earlier rolled back the years to see off newcomer Julie Green in the Backbone final. Shirley also contested the 100 Up against Sue Willmott, with Sue prevailing. Sue did battle with Carol in the 2 Wood final, the players eventually shook hands with Sue too far ahead for Carol to catch up.
Sue Willmott went on to win all four of her finals, pairing up with Julie Green to win the pairs, and with John Bartlett and an impressive Kath Honeysett to win the 2 wood triples.

See the full list of winners and runners-up here.

Schedule for Finals Days 2021

The running order for Sunday 29th August is as follows:

	Blue stickers	Red stickers
10:00	Aussie Pairs
	David Walker & Colin Stevens	Joy Mayall & Carol Watson
10:00	Ladies 100 Up
	Sue Willmott	Shirley Nelson
10:30	Butfoy 100 Up
	Peter Page	Steve Gorringe
11:00	Men's Handicap
	Kelvin Booth (+6)	Keith Holman (-3)
13:00	Men's Backbone
	Alan Gardiner	David Walker
14:00	Men's Championship
	Guy Thornely	Paul Sandford
14:30	Ladies' Pairs
	Julie Green & Sue Willmott	Kathy Jarvis & Carol Watson
15:00	Men's Pairs
	David Highton & Peter Colbourne	Anthony Gimson & Peter Page

The running order for Monday 30th August is as follows:

	Blue stickers	Red stickers
10:00	Ladies Backbone:
	Shirley Nelson	Julie Green
10:00	2 Wood Triples
	Kath Honeysett, John Bartlett, Sue Willmott	Colin Mallows, Geoff Nelson, Carol Watson
10:30	Men's 2 Wood
	Peter Colbourne	Alan Gardiner
10:30	Men's Veterans
	Bill Colbourne	Anthony Gimson
14:30	Men's 100 Up
	Peter Gacsall	Alan Gardiner
14:30	Ladies Championship
	Shirley Nelson	Carol Watson
16:15	Ladies 2 Wood
	Sue Willmott	Carol Watson

17:30	Presentation of trophies.

Note: Dress code for all bowlers and markers is whites. Greys for doing the scoreboard.

Lindfield pair in action at Leamington

Sussex County Pairs winners Paul Sandford and Adam Harding put in an excellent showing in the Nationals at Leamington Spa today. Playing on rink E5 in the morning session they bowled well to beat Josh Minto and Chris Yeomans of Gosforth (Northumberland) 16-14. The Lindfield duo took an early lead and kept their noses in front throughout on a tricky rink.

That put them into the afternoon session on A2 against newly-crowned National Singles Champion Sam Tolchard and partner Louis Ridout from the Kings Club (Devon), who are probably favourites to win the competition this year. Adam and Paul both rose to the occasion, with Paul regularly matching Ridout as both leads crowded the jack. The difference was in Tolchard's confident array of conversion shots, moving the jack around or pushing bowls away with controlled weight, so that any shots that Lindfield held looked precarious at all times.

Adam played a superb yard-on bowl to remove Devon's nearest wood on the 10th end to give them 3 shots, only to then drop a 3 on the following end as Tolchard did the same.
Scoring more than a single shot on any end looked to be a near-impossible task, and the skips eventually shook hands at 19-10 to Devon, with one end to spare. Well done Paul and Adam for putting in an excellent performance in front of an appreciative crowd.

Tony Allcock team beat Wallington on neutral green

Our Tony Allcock (National over 60's mixed double-fours) team are one win away from Leamington, after beating Wallington BC at Horley Bowls Club (neutral venue) this morning.
The two games were hard fought, with the result never really certain until the closing ends, when Peter Gacsall's rink (Margaret Atkins, Sue Willmott, Ralph Lonsdale) pulled away strongly from their opposition, sealing the game by picking up a 5 on their last end.

The Wallington skip succeeded in regularly getting his rink out of trouble, on one end cutting a 7 down to 1, and saving several other big scores. The pressure eventually told with Gacsall's quartet winning 22-6 with an end to spare.

In the other game Jennie Sandford, Carol Watson, Ian Watson and Keith Holman had a constant tussle with their opponents, the shot changed hands regularly until some telling bowls from Keith just nudged them ahead, 15-14. Lindfield now face a team from Kent on another neutral green in the next two weeks.

25th July: County pairs champions!

Adam Harding (left) and Paul Sandford, county pairs winners 2021

Congratulations to Paul Sandford and Adam Harding on winning the Sussex County Pairs, defeating Hove & Kingsway's Shaun Mulligan and David Hubbard 17-10 in steady rain at Horsham this morning. Paul and Adam took an early lead and looked comfortable for much of the game, until several ends of inspired bowling from Mulligan and Hubbard closed the gap to just 3 shots. However Adam bowled a series of telling woods in the closing ends to minimise the Kingsway duo's chances of scoring.
Adam (pictured left) had previously won the county pairs with Keith Holman in 2005.

24th July: County triples champions!

Adam Harding, Ian Watson and Keith Holman are Sussex County Triples Champions again, for the fourth time! The trio managed to sneak a two-shot win past West Hoathly's Dave Dawson, Roy Williams and Gordon Hall, 15-13, in an absorbing final at Horsham today. Lindfield got off to a good start but then got stuck on 7 for several ends, while West Hoathly gradually caught up with them, and went ahead.

It took a full-blooded firing shot from Keith to ditch the jack then draw a good second, to get them back into the game, after which Adam started to find better weight than Dave Dawson, and Gordon found several gaps with running woods.
Adam, Ian and Keith previously won the triples together in 2017, 2016 and 2003.

16th July: County competitions update

Congratulations to Paul Sandford and Adam Harding, who are through to the final of the county pairs after beating Des Foord and Peter Carter of Newick at Horsham last night.

Adam is also through to the triples final along with Ian Watson and Keith Holman, where they face Gordon Hall's West Hoathly team.

We narrowly missed out on some other finalists - Keith Holman lost in the semi-final of the Champion of Champions to Lee Dickson, and Ian Watson's senior four also lost in the semi-final, while Adam lost in the quarter-final of the men's singles.

County finals weekend is Sat/Sun 24th-25th July at Horsham bowls club. Running order TBC.

In the nationals, Lindfield have reached the area semi-final of the Tony Allcock trophy thanks to a comfortable win over Preston, and we now face Eastbourne by 25th July.

31st May: News update

After an awfully long time, the bowls season has got under way! April was glorious, but it was too early to bowl, and May has been less kind with players wearing multiple jumpers and wet gear. Quite a number of Lindfield players have won through the early stages of county competitions:

- Carol Watson and Ralph Lonsdale won their first National Mixed Pairs at West Hoathly against Roy Williams and Sylvia Smith, 25-9.

- Sue Willmott and Carol Watson are through to the 4th round of county pairs having won against Woodingdean 22-4; Joan Hampton's Trixie pair is through to the second round.

- Keith Holman won his first round match in the Champion of Champions.

- In the 4 wood singles Kelvin Booth, Adam Harding, Keith Holman, Peter Gacsall and Ralph Lonsdale are all through to the second round.

- Peter Page is through to the second round of the Unbadged Singles.

- Peter Page and Kelvin Booth had a good win over Preston's Andy Michael and Steve Ireland in the National Over 55 Pairs.

- In the county pairs, both Ian Watson's pair and Paul Sandford's are into the third round.

- Three triples are still competing, led by: Ian Watson, Peter Colbourne and Peter Page.

Quite a number of club matches have been cancelled because of rain. Those matches played have had reduced numbers plyaing, usually just three triples, with the results balancing wins and losses.

April 2021: Not long til we open!

The end is in sight after a long and difficult winter; the green opens on Saturday 24th April with well-supported drives on both days of the opening weekend.
At the moment we are anticipating a full season, as demonstrated by our fixtures list, but we start the season under Bowls England's "Return to Bowls" restrictions.

For visiting teams and members, please click here to view how these restrictions will affect your game at Lindfield during April and May. We hope that these restrictions will be gradually lifted as the season progresses.

Lindfield Bowling Club

Club News from 2021