Bowling Round-Up

May 13 2010 by Mairon Laird, West Lothian Courier

SPECSAVERS is to support one of Scotland’s leading community sports with the UK wide branch of the Global Optician Group announcing their sponsorship of the Inter County Top Ten Bowls Tournament, writes Stewart Meikle.

And this year’s tournament will benefit from a groundbreaking innovation with Specsavers decision to award specially designed Souvenir Caps to the title winning team.

The 29th renewal of the Top Ten features the champion club of the 25 competing County Associations ranging from Port William in Wigtownshire to Inverness of the Northern Counties.

Last seasons qualifying play has whittled the original starting field of some 8000 bowlers down to 250 who commence battle on Sunday, May 16, with the climax at Colinton BC, Edinburgh on June 13.

Buchan Park are the reigning Top Ten Champions of West Lothian and the Broxburn based club carry the county banner into action this weekend with a tough looking away visit to Abergeldie, the champions of Bon Accord.

The Buchan Park line up is a strong one and staying faithful to last season’s title winning team it reads:

David Ledgerwood (Singles); Stephen Pettigrew and Ian Thorburn (Pairs); Steven Fleming Kenny Miller and Kenny Logan (Triples); John Black Billy Irvine Barry Sword and Iain Grant (Fours).

WEST Lothian didn’t mange to hit the ground running but the defending champions did pick up from a slow start and storm impressively to a 24 short victory over East Lothian in the Scottish Counties Championship clash at Kirkliston.

The opening encounter in the East section was an early renewal of last seasons final won narrowly by West Lothian and the latest battle shaped up as a successful revenge mission with East Lothian dashing into a 12 shot lead.

East Lothian was prominent on three of the six rinks over the first 7-end phase with 10-1 contributions from the rinks skipped by Jamie Higgins and Alex Marshall supported by a 10-4 from Struan Robertson.

Handing out starts to a team of East Lothian’s calibre isn’t a sound tactic however West Lothian sorted themselves out to capture the second phase, 44-27 then dominated the third, 49-30 to win convincingly.

The 124-100 final score line reflects a strong team performance by the champions with wins on the rinks skipped by John Aitken, Neil Speirs, Thomas Mann, and Gary Smith. Graeme Archer finished peels while Grant Logan lost narrowly.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom over the opening ends for West Lothian thanks to the efforts of John Aitken with the record three times Masters Champion skipping Bryan Cooper Gerry Duggan and Calum Logan into a 13-3 lead after 10-ends.

Aitken and company had Derek Oliver under pressure and managed to defend their lead over a harder fought second half to triumph 22-11.

Speirs, like Aitken playing on his home green, also helped the county camp settle with a super six on the 7th end to skip Cameron Greer Ian Robertson and Sandy McDougall in to a 12-7 lead over Willie Wood.

Wood was tough to cope with and had his rink in touch at 16-16 after 12-ends but Speirs and company produced the stronger finish to win 29-21.

Mann made telling space to 14-5 by adding a 4, 2 and continued to do enough to skip Frazer Muirhead Walter McDougall and Alec Allan to a 20-14 win over Alister Kennedy.

West Lothian did have early concerns on the rink of Stewart McMaster James Speirs George Sneddon and Smith who trailed 13-5 after 13-ends to Kenny McCrorie Brian Hunter William Dunleavey and Higgins.

Smith traded a single to 6-14 then in a significant transformation won all of the remaining six ends to register a 17-14 victory.

Archer came from 10-4 down to 12-10 up but was back under pressure at 13-17 before skipping Ewan Shearer Steven Fleming and Raymond Logan to a 20-20 peel with Robertson.

Logan and his rink of Mark Allison Andrew Dunnett and Blair Mackie were against the collar at 5-14 but did their bit for the cause by only finishing 20-16 down to Grant Thomson Jamie Gordon Richard Black and Marshall.

CALUM Logan’s recent decision to switch his allegiance from Broxburn to Kirkliston has been rewarded in the first round of the club championship with a draw against the defending champion – his father Raymond.

The 20-year-old also gains one of two nominations to represent Kirkliston in the Scottish Under 25 Singles – Robbie Cuthell grandson of former top flight football referee Bob Cuthell is the other.