The week started well with Berkhamsted’s Men beating Rosedale 3 matches to 2 in the National Top Club Competition. D Sear won 18-9 in the Two Wood game and K Clarke won 21-8 in the singles. Unfortunately P Mackness & B Ralphs lost in the pairs and S Burrell, P Batchelor & D Brown lost in the Triples. However to clinch a 3-2 win overall E Browitt, M Primo, D Root & K Maynard won the Fours by 19 shots – 12.

Success continued for Berkhamsted with the Ladies team of Linda Ralphs, Liz Temple & Lesley Brown beating a team from Bushey 25-3 in the Ladies County Triples, with the opposition conceding after 12 ends. In the Men’s County League a very close match was played against Abbots Langley with Berkhamsted finally winning 37-36 and gaining 4 points to Abbots Langley’s 2. There was a top team of B Smith, M Primo, B Ralphs & D Brown. The success for the Men did not last and they lost narrowly to Hemel Hempstead 58 – 62 in the 2nd round of the Herts inter Club Team Championship.

However, the Ladies continued successfully, in the Ladies County Fours, with the team of Sarah Marshall, Linda Ralphs, Liz Temple and Lesley Brown winning their first out of zone match against a team from Harperbury by 24 -12. They now progress on to the County Quarter Finals. In the Ladies County Triples a team of Linda Ralphs, Liz Temple and Lesley Brown beat a team from Stevenage 16-13 which means they now progress to the Quarter finals of this Competition. Unfortunately the Ladies winning ways came to a halt in the Top Club Competition despite winning on two rinks. They lost to a team from Welwyn in a close fought match by 65 shots to 67. The winning teams from Berkhamsted were, in the Pairs: Anne Furlong & Jackie Cormack by 24-16 and in the fours: Marion Maynard, Mary Clarke, Liz Temple & Lesley Brown by 22-14.

The week finished with a match against North Watford which Berkhamsted won 120 – 55. It was a bit one sided as North Watford only have 22 playing members and one of them playing had never played Bowls before. Berkhamsted’s top rink was J Griffin, M Primo and J Cormack.

Finally, David Brown, a member of the Hertfordshire West Division Bowls Executive, and convenor of the fixture between West Division and the Hertfordshire Bowls Men’s Presidents Team, which Berkhamsted hosted on Sunday, reads out the names of the West division team for this event, played at Berkhamsted Bowls Club. On the far left is Alan Sayers, Hertfordshire Bowls Men’s President, and on the far right, Jan Holland, Hertfordshire Bowls Ladies President.

Thursday 15th September turned out to be a great day for our bowlers:

In the final Dacorum Shield Match of the season we were away at Kings Langley. Lying second in the league to Kitcheners before the match we needed to 4.5 points in order to win the Shield on shots difference.  However, the team took all 5 points to make absolutely certain that they finished at the top of the league.

It all hinged on the last wood in the Mens match. Ken Maynard had the last wood and, as he was about to deliver that wood, the Men were trailing by 1 shot meaning that he needed to overturn that shot for the draw needed to get the overall 4.5 points required to win the Shield.

The ‘wily old fox’ did better than that. He not only took out the holding Kings Langley wood, but touched the jack, carried it into the ditch – turning one down into 2 up for us; not only winning the rink but as our Ladies and Mixed rinks were ‘winning rinks’, we took all 5 match points.

Meanwhile in the 2016 Visually Impaired National Bowling Championships at Leamington Spa, Sarah Marshall won the National B1 Singles Trophy with an emphatic 21 – 4 scoreline. Earlier Sarah, with partner Nancy Cheeseman (Yeovil), won the National B2 Pairs Trophy.

Congratulations to our 2016 Dacorum Shield Mens Rink, Ladies Rink & Mixed Rink squads and to Sarah for more National titles.

The week started with another good win for the Ladies team of Carole Dunn, Anne Furlong and Jackie Cormack when they beat a team of Ladies from Radlett to reach the Semi-Finals of the Watford and District 2 Wood Triples Competition.

A team from Berkhamsted of Derek Sandford, Anne Cutting, Maurice Primo and Del Root entered the Cheddington Gala and won 6 of their 7 matches but were kept to 2nd place by the team who won from Newport Pagnell.

Berkhamsted had a match against Disability Bowls England this week which was arranged by one of the members, Tom Presland, who used to be the Disabilities Officer for Oxford Council. Since Stoke Mandeville closed its bowls rink they have not had a fixture in this area so they were invited to bring a team to Berkhamsted and disabled bowlers came from all over the south of England to play. Berkhamsted ended up winning 118 – 75 with a top rink of Janice Murgatroyd, Ray Kessler and Paul Mackness. They all enjoyed the game so much that the same fixture will be arranged for next season.

In the friendly against Princess Risborough Berkhamsted lost by 70 shots to 101 despite the efforts of their top rink of Dave Drew, Gary Fisher and Jackie Cormack. However, in the Dacorum Shield Competition against Tring, Berkhamsted won on all 3 rinks gaining maximum points.”