Mills teams off to a winning start (From Stroud News and Journal)

Mills teams off to a winning start

NAILSWORTH Mills Bowling Club took on Victory Park in the final of the Arthur Duffett Cup at Cotswold Indoor Bowls Club recently and fought back from an indifferent start to take the trophy.

The competition is a mixed team event with two men and two ladies in each rink.

To reach the final Nailsworth had accounted for Rodborough, Cope Chat and Falcon, while Victory Park had overcome Cirencester and Stroud, and with both teams having a successful run a close contest was always in prospect.

Things went very much the Park's way in the early stages. At five ends only the Nailsworth rink of Ken Porter, Brian Warren, Vera Reynolds and Zena Bowman were ahead, as they led by eight shots to one,but Victory Park were leading overall by four shots.

At ten ends, however, things had changed, thanks to a flurry of nine shots in three ends from Bob Gartan, Mervyn Ind, Rosemary Davis and Margaret Gartan, which meant that Nailsworth had crept in front by four shots themselves.

This lead had been reduced to two shots at 15 ends, but then Richard Coates, Sheila Hayward, Roy Bowman and Tress Seed had an inspired run picking up 11 shots in four ends to get their noses in front of their opponents and everything looked set for an exciting finish.

Ken Porter, Bob Gartan and Richard Coates's rinks hung on to their slender leads and John Millman, Cynthia King, Trevor Golding and Marian Perry, who had battled against strong opposition all afternoon, finished strongly to only go down by three shots.

That left Nailsworth overall victors by a margin of 11 shots, 75-64 and they duly stepped up to accept the trophy after a hard-earned but deserved triumph.

Meanwhile, Stroud Bowling Club overcame Cope Chat BC in the final to capture the Cotswold Indoor Bowls Club's Men's Knockout Cup.

M Ind won the singles final beating L Elliott, while the pairs winners were B Gartan and J Gabb who beat P and N Chandler in the final.

Triples winners were M Brown, K Porter and P Williams who overcame B Warren, M Ind and B Gartan in the final.

Finally, in the final of the fours competition the winners were P Chandler, J Tombs, JK Davis and K Porter who got the better of runners-up R Poulter, T Hanley, L Hanley and D Hopkins after a hard-fought and sporting encounter.