Crossens v Victoria Park 2019

 

What a fantastic day we had on Saturday.

We hosted the Annual Crossens BC versus Victoria Park BC Challenge Match.

Under the lovely blue skies, we had 22 bowlers representing Crossens and 21 representing Victoria Park. A great friendly atmosphere produced some really good bowling.

We started the day with some straight forward singles and pairs games. After these 14 games, Crossens took the lead with 8 wins and 113 chalks compared to Victoria’s 6 wins and 100 chalks.
There was a short break for a superb lunch prepared by the Crossens Ladies, then back to the bowling.
This is where things got interesting, we now played Triple’s. With 6 bowlers and 12 bowls in each game, it produced some remarkable ends. we had every thing from no-ends to scoring 6 at an end. Everyone seemed to enjoy the unusual format. Victoria Park came out the better in this stage of the day, with 4 wins and 87 chalks against Crossens 3 wins and 78 chalks.
Things were getting close.
There was another slight change for the next part of the Challenge Match, Tag Bowls. Each team was divided into 4 groups of 5 players. These groups were then paired off against a group from the opposing team. With each player just playing 5 ends, then ‘Tagging-In’ the next player from their group for the next five ends.. etc etc. This tested the not just the bowls but the brain and the support of each team.
The results were pretty even in this format with 2 wins each, but Crossens had 72 chalks versus Victoria’s 64 chalks.
Now came the Captains Challenge. Sue Mountford(Victoria) took on Gary Burgess(Crossens), Gary coming off the better with a 9-2 win.

Time for the totals –
Crossens attained 14 wins during the day, amassing 272 chalks. Victoria managed 12 wins and amassed 253 chalks.

Crossens BC are the Annual Challenge Match Champions for 2019.

Thank you to Victoria Park BC for being great opponents and better luck next year.

Huge thanks to Gary for organising the day so well.

Additional photos curtesy of John Howard.