Secretary / Competition Secretary Report - Season 2012

Ladies & Gentlemen

The leagues were re organized this year to make the bottom leagues larger. South Wingfield and Alv. & Boulton C have rejoined the league this year and we lost Woodville. Unfortunately Stretton Anglesey A withdrew from the premier division.

 Individual Merit

 The first event of the season was the merit and with more entries we went for eight qualifying greens with two from each going to the final day which was be held at Rykneld B.C. The holder, Danny Petcher of Netherseal got through at Alvaston & Boulton along with Scott Gibson of Littleover. The 2010 winner David May of Stretton Anglesey and Eddie Furniss of Rowditch won through at Littleover. Darren Smith of Rolls Royce and Gareth Nash of Marehay progressed at Allestree whilst Mick. Bacon of Rowditch and Rob Treece of Rolls Royce went through at Derby Co-op. The Alvaston & Boulton pair of Steve Brookes and Andy Milsom qualified at Spondon and Dean Taylor of Littleover and Andrew Day of Spondon got through at King's Newton. Craig Pearson of Rowditch and Russ Mosley of Etwall won at Brackens and they were joined by Martin Hartley (Alvaston & Boulton ) and myself who won at Rowditch. On the finals day at Rykneld the first round was a qualifier for the Derbyshire County Merit in Burton on Sunday 24th June and no one had an easy passage. Scott Gibson had the best win with a decisive break from 11-10 to 16-10 against Andy Milsom. The eventual winner, Darren Smith, had a similar break from 10-12 to 17-12 against Craig Pearson. Russell Mosley made his move a little earlier when he went from 4-4 to 11-4 to put out David May. Danny Petcher had the narrowest of wins over Rob Treece taking an early 9-3 lead but being pulled back from 15-10 to 15 across before winning by one in a tight finish. Darren and Danny had comfortable quarter final wins with the former having an eight break and three successive twos to finish whilst the latter had an early 14 break. I had seven and six breaks against Steve Brookes and Russell came back from 12-16 to beat Scott Gibson. Both semi finals were close. Russell had a 15-9 lead over Darren before a crucial eight break and a 1, 1, 2 finish from 17-19 saw Darren into the final. I started well but slipped from 6-1 to  6-9 as Danny recovered and then went 15-10 up. I then scored ten without reply to get to 20-15 and then had to wait to get the final point.The final was quite one sided when Darren went from 5-5 to 13-5 and then finished with another five break. This gave him his fourth Merit title, having last won it in 2006. At the County Merit finals Darren Smith and Danny Petcher both lost in the semi finals and so qualified for the All Britain Merit event. The County title was won by John Dewey of Belvedere Park who beat Neil Worthington of Stretton Anglesey in the final.

Ray Hanson Doubles / Charity Cup


Twenty-three pairs contested the Ray Hanson doubles on Sunday 1st July at Littleover.  Iain Maxwell and David Stevenson of Brackens won the event in which pairs are handicapped according to the division in which they bowl. They beat Netherseal pair Robert Redfern and Matt Farmer in the final having defeated another Netherseal pair, Richard Eley and Elliott Laboure in the semi final. The other semi final was an all Netherseal affair with Robert and Matt beating club mates Terry Boswoth and James Southern. A large entry of 35 competed in the Charity Cup on Alvaston & Boulton on Sunday 16th September. The event was won by the home player, Richard Gill, who beat David Stevenson of Brackens 21-4 in the final. The losing semi finalists were Jon Copeland of Rolls Royce and Elliott Laboure of Netherseal.

Main Leagues

Stretton Anglesey retained the Dean Burton premier league title this year only losing one game and winning by a massive 35 point margin from Swadlincote Catholics who were a further 27 ahead of Littleover. At the foot of the table the pressure was off somewhat with the withdrawal of Stretton Anglesey A. Horsley finished at the foot behind Winshill and Rowditch. The two teams relegated in 2011 made an immediate return to the premier division Brackens beating Derby Co-op by 8 points to take the Ashbourne B.C. sponsored Division 1. Horsley A were relegated to make this a poor season for the club.. Having knocked on the door for the past few seasons Rolls Royce 2 won Vice Presidents Division 2 from Spondon whilst  Stretton A were relegated. Swadlincote Catholics A achieved a third successive promotion and went up from the Alv.& Boulton B.C. sponsored Division 3  with Brackens A. Foreman's Club had another poor year and suffered successive relegations. Netherseal A and newcomers South Wingfield were too strong for the rest of division four and finished a point apart well ahead of the rest of whom Littleover B were well adrift at the foot of the table. Allestree A and Alvaston & Crewton were the top two in division 5.

Dickie Cup

The holders, Littleover, came safely through the first round in which Marehay and Belvedere Park were the only premier sides to go out. Marehay lost to Winshill in an all premier clash and Belvedere Park went down to Littleover A. There were two all premier clashes in round two. Swadlincote Catholics went out to Rolls Royce 1 by 17 shots and Alvaston & Boulton put out the holders. The closest tie of the round was that in which Winshill put out the well handicapped Netherseal A by two shots. There was only one all premier division clash in round three and Alvaston & Boulton ended Winshill's good run. Premier leaders, Stretton Anglesey beat Swadlincote Catholics A and Rolls Royce 1 beat their second string by 18. On quarter finals day Alvaston & Boulton beat Stretton Anglesey and Rolls Royce 1 easily beat Belvedere Park A. The other games were close with Littleover A beating Rowditch by 10 and Rolleston accounting for Brackens by 5 shots. Rolls Royce won the all premier semifinal against Alvaston & Boulton by 20 shots and Rolleston had an even more comfortable passage to the final as they beat Littleover A by 29. Rolls Royce pulled back 12 of the 35 handicap deficit in the first four of the Dickie Cup final but he game swung in the middle four as Rob Treece and Darren Smith won to single figures. The last two games balanced out and so Royces won the trophy by 12 shots. Rolls Royce first team last won the Dickie Cup in 1975 and this was the first time that Rolleston had reached the final of the competition.   

          Champion of Champions


Stretton Anglesey capped a fine season in the South Derbyshire League by winning the Champion of Champions competition on Tuesday 18th September. In the final they beat Division 3 winners, Swadlincote Catholics A, by 21 shots, losing just one game. In the semi final they beat division two champions, Rolls Royce 2 by 205 shots to 166 with eight winners, four of them to single figures. In the other semi final Swadlincote had beaten division five winners, Allestree A, 249-236. In the preliminary round Rolls Royce 2 beat Netherseal A (division four winners) 245-227 and Swadlincote Catholics A beat division one winners, Brackens, 228-210.

Floodlit League

We lost Woodville from last year. Belvedere continued with one team playing at Washlands. We welcomed Foreman's Club back into the league and with Alvaston & Boulton, Brackens,and South Wingfield entering additional teams we were up to a 'full' seven divisions of eight at the start. Spondon 2 withdrew during the season so Division 4 finished with seven. Marehay 1 retained the division one title this year with Alv. & Boulton 1 as runners up. Horsley and Washlands 1 were the bottom two. Brackens 1 won division two from Belvedere Park with Stretton 1 and Swad. Caths 2 at the bottom. Division three was taken by Netherseal 1 with Barton 1 runners up. Denby were well adrift at the bottom but Marehay 2 just avoided the drop at the expense of South Wingfield. Marstons and Newhall Social were the promoted two from division four with Henhurst 2 at the bottom. Rykneld 1 and Ashbourne 2 headed division five with Rowditch 2 and Stretton 2 relegated. Netherseal 2 and Barton 2 took the honours in division six with Foreman's Club and Rykneld 2 due to go down. The bottom division was won easily by South Wingfield 2 with Breadsall 2  as runners up. Marstons took the floodlit cup beating Washlands 1 184-162. in the final. The losing semi finalists were Netherseal 1 and Barton 1.

Federation

We won and lost two games year finishing third with 58 points. We started well with a 20-12 win over Calderdale. Nigel Iliff was the best of six away winners with a 21-10 whilst at home on Rowditch Richard Gill (21-6)) and Brian Woodcock (21-8) helped us to a 50 shot win. In the second game we met Mid Cheshire, the reigning champions and winners again this year, We went to Holbrook and won by 25 shots with seven winners but the away half was well beaten with Mick Gratton earning us a solitary point for an overall 10-22 defeat. In June we took Rochdale to King's Newton and suffered a second 10-22 reverse. As in the last game we had seven home winners, Andy Milsom & Ed Furniss best with 21-12s, and only one point from our travels, this time earned by Adam Morgan.  David Stevenson and Calvin Jackson and won 21-7 and 21-9 in the last home game at Littleover against Fylde. We had seven home winners and five away, the best being Danny Harrison's 21-2, to win the match 18-14 and get enough points to avoid relegation. Thanks go to the two team captains and to all of the players especially those prepared to travel. We are also grateful to all of the Clubs who staged games and catered for us in the home matches.

The veterans could not repeat their success of the last two seasons and relinquished the Midlands division title to Cannock. We beat  Swadlincote B, Swadlincote A and Nuneaton 9-1, 7-3 and 7-3 respectively but lost 3-7 to Cannock to finish 4 points behind them. We had two good days at Washlands and  Jim Bancroft and Cliff Robinson both won all of their games.

Thanks

I would like to finish by thanking everyone who has helped me and the Association in any way during season 2012, all of the Officers and the Executive committee and all of the Club secretaries and Club sponsors.

 

Graham Jackson