Trophies galore at Melton & District IBC as winners honoured

Melton’s young bowlers have been particularly successful, with Paul Warrington winning the Under-25s title, Isabelle Pymm the Under-18s title and Tyler King the Under-16s title.

To cap it all, Isabelle and Tyler also won the County Under-18s Pairs title.

Following his success in the Men’s Over-60s Singles at the National Championships, John Robinson won the County Men’s Over-60s Pairs title with his partner Peter Breeze.

Melton Ladies’ Triples team - Katie Donkin, Rita James and Erica Warrington - were runners-up in the county final.

*M&DIBC celebrated the Coronation a little early last Saturday as 42 bowlers came dressed for a street party and played competitive triples matches on rinks festooned with bunting.

The traditional ‘spider’ competition opened the proceedings, won by Mel Burgess.

In the winning Blue team were Paul Lonsdale, Yvonne Kent and Roger Beeton, and in the winning Red team were Brian Hamilton, Joan Casey and Brian Donovan.

Wooden spoons were awarded to Red team Sue Pelos, Peter Kipling and Mick Lawrence and to Blue team Sylvia Donovan, Suzanne Hughes/Carol Pick and Barry Pelos.

*A group of bowlers from M&DIBC visited the new Potters Resorts Five Lakes in Essex.

Five Lakes has a different emphasis from the Potters Hopton-on-Sea resort of World Championships fame, with the focus on skills-based competitions and coaching by Andy Thompson MBE.

Although only a small group, the Melton bowlers had some success. Dave Armstrong won a skills-based competition. Hazel and Dave Armstrong and Yvonne and Steve Kent both had two wins out of three matches in the Pairs tournament, with Yvonne and Steve making it through to the final on countback.

In a hard-fought match, Yvonne and Steve managed to pick up a 5 in the penultimate end, giving them overall victory.

Yvonne also took part in a Triples competition with a couple from Eltham, but they lost out to a strong team from Louth and Woking.

All participating bowlers were entered into a draw to play four ends of singles against Andy Thompson; Dave Armstrong and Yvonne Kent were among the lucky ones and, although Thompson showed no mercy, Yvonne did manage to get one point when he bowled a wrong bias in the final end.