Lothian Disability Sport Carpet Bowls Championships

This whole article and picture is copied from the Lothian Disability Sport web site. Please click on the link to view their web site. Thanks.

Well done Alan from all at PSRC.

Sunday 17^th January 2016

With only one no show, 32 bowlers competed in this year’s LDS Carpet Bowls Championships, the qualifying event for the Scottish Disability Sport National Carpet Bowls Championships.

Although held at Musselburgh Sports Centre carpets had been brought from Prestonpans Community Centre and from West Lothian and all were of a very good standard. The width of the boxes on some of the carpets from West Lothian were narrower than the recommended dimensions and this led to some issues but did not affect the overall running of the event.

The most keenly contested category was the Men’s Learning Disability section which had 18 entries from four different clubs plus two independent bowlers. Following a round robin competition of 2 sections of 5 and 2 of 4 the winners of each section went forward to the semi finals. There was a very high standard of bowling in all of the sections demonstrated by the fact that two of the four sections had to be decided by shot difference as there was no overall winner.

The two semi finals saw Alan Gordon (independent ) v Gordon Graham (Kirkton) and Euan Wright (independent) v John McMillan (Kirkton) with Alan and John winning through to the final. This proved to be a very close contest which required an extra end to separate the two and it was John McMillan who emerged as the winner by 8 shots to 6. John has been a regular competitor in this event over many years but this is the first time he has won and congratulations to him on a well won victory.

Nine ladies from 3 different clubs took part in the Ladies’ Learning Disability section of the event. This took the form of two sections played in round robin format with the winner of section A playing the runner up of section B, and vice versa. As with the men’s event Kirkton Service Centre proved the strength of its bowlers as three out of the 4 semi finalists were representing the Centre. The line up for these matches was Amanda Craig v Gillian Donald and Susan Drummond v Lisa Wilkie from Lothian Special Olympics. An extra end was required again to decide the winner of this second semi final and Lisa won out by 6 shots to 5. The Ladies final was then won by Amanda Craig with a fine display of controlled bowls. Amanda is a bowler of many years experience and a past winner of both this event and the SDS Championships, but it was a tremendous achievement by Lisa to reach the final as she only took up bowls recently and this was her first ever competition.

Bowlers with a Physical Disability competed in the third and final section of this year’s Championships. With only one lady entrant the PD section was combined and the 5 bowlers contesting it all played each other. Emerging victorious with 4 wins out of 4 was Jimmy Restorick from the Prestonpans & District Disabled Bowling Club while Neil Shirley from Musselburgh took second spot with 3 wins out of 4.

Trophies and medals were kindly provided by the Musselburgh Riding of the Marches Committee and representative, Colin Forbes, came along to make the presentations, including a medal to every participant. The Riding of the Marches is an event that only comes along every 21 years and the organising committee is keen to support different sports in the run up to the event which takes place over a week from 24^th June.

As well as thanks to Colin and the Riding of the Marches Committee, the biggest thanks was reserved for tournament referee Richard Douglas and the other volunteers who came along to mark the ties. With ten different people on hand to help out the overall smooth running of the tournament was ensured and, although it overran slightly, the event passed off very successfully. Thanks were also given to the suppliers of the carpets, to the staff at Musselburgh Sports Centre and to Neal Herbert for all his organisation leading up to the event.