LAST WOOD VICTORIES IN BOWLS FINALS
Eastbourne Win Open Pairs
There was some good bowling on the last day of the tournament at Princes Park on Saturday, two of the games, the pairs final and the singles semi-final, being won with last woods.
All records were broken in regard to the weather. It was the finest week in the twenty years’ history of the festival, and the decision of the Committee in holding the meeting at a later date was a wise one – and was no doubt responsible for the increased entries. The players were drawn from Wales, the Midlands and Eastern and Southern counties, and the general arrangements reflected great credit on the members of the Committee, the chairman (Mr W E Coy), hon. secretary (Mr G A Fox), his assistant (Mr E T Chad) and the official scorer (Mr G H Hatcher) being both painstaking and diligent.
PAIRS FINAL
The pairs final was played on Saturday morning between H G Parrott and J Gardner, of the Eastbourne Club, and A Gee and W R Heal, of the Carshalton Club. Whereas the Surrey players won two of their games in Section A by such wide margins as 39-6 and 30-16, the local pair had to fight much harder in Section B , only winning their third and fourth round games by a solitary shot.
After the visitors had won the first two heads the Eastbourne players delighted their followers by scoring 3, 2m 4 and 2 in succession to lead 11-3 at the 6th. The Carshalton pair reduced the arrears with a 2 and a 1, and after their opponents had added 1 to their total, they registered on the next five ends to go in front by 2 at the 14th.
HEAL WAS UNLUCKY
Then came the turning point in the game, Heal, with a yard on wood, hitting Gardner’s shot wood and also disturbing the jack, which went to Eastbourne;s cluster of four back woods. Heal tried to retrieve the situation with his last delivery, but was unsuccessful. The four put the locals three up. On the next end Heal laid three close to the white object, but Gardner, having twice crawled through, carried the jack and won the head. By adding three singles to their card Eastbourne led 20-14 at the19th. On the 20th head, on a short jack, Gardner failed to upset well-positioned opposition woods, and the visitors claimed 4. the last end was an exciting one. Gee beat Parrott, and after the skips had each bowled a wood Carshalton were laying a possible three shots. Gardner missed with his second and third deliveries, but with his last wood he carried the jack and thus won a fine game by three shots. Gee was a little more consistent in lengyh than Parrott, but Gardner more than held his own against Heal, and played a big share in Eastbourne’s victory.
Full scores were:
Eastbourne
0 0 3 2 4 2 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 4 1 1 1 0 1 – 21.
Carshalton
1 2 0 0 0 0 2 1 0 3 1 1 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 – 18
SINGLES SEMI-FINAL
On the same green in the morning H P Brazier (Worthing Pavilion) played J J Mason (White Rock – Hastings) in the Singles’ semi-final, E E Clachan (East Ham) having beaten E R Rattray in the other semi-final the previous day.