Come to Redcar they said, slap on the factor 30 sun cream they said….. well the only thing that got slapped on was a good old coat and thermal underlay.
Our feature image just shows the amount of fun that two familiar faces were having…….
So after all the protestations from last year over the Bowls England changes to one of the more popular formats amongst players which ultimately got voted in by the counties…. (how many voted actually played in the thing is another matter) but let us move on as it was Balcomb Trophy day – hold on Balcomb weekend.
So if you enjoy the Top Club format and chuck out the Two Bowl Singles then this format is for you, actually I don’t have an issue with the format but then again I did enjoy ye old double fours format as well.
For the Northern qualifier Yorkshire hosted the two day competition therefore Lancashire, Cumbria, Durham, Northumberland made the trek over to sunny Redcar bowls club – a club I never visited before.
Two green’s were needed due to the new round robin format so they ticked that box. Now its fair to say at this time of the season you are pushed to find one decent running surface so it came as no surprise that feedback from the players was that the greens weren’t at a mid June pace.
However taking nothing away from the venue as a massive pat on the backs to the Redcar club itself for putting on the event. The catering, the bar staff all take a bow, even some fella with a chain was there. The only thing missing was the only thing out of anybody’s control the weather – it was cold cold cold with a 10 minute blue sky window before reverting back to cold cold cold, even the 4G signal was great for streaming but let’s move along there is nothing to see here…. quite literally.
With the expansion of the Middleton Cup that now takes up five weekends which included last years Balcomb date meant an early May date was the only option, something that maybe needs looking at next year so the cream of the counties can play on greens that run for more than 10 seconds in June rather that May.
At the end of the first day’s action it was that cold my predictive text was worse than ever due to the shakes which wasn’t ideal trying to send text updates on the last couple of ends of the remaining game.
With it being over a weekend it also meant overnight stays for Lancashire and Cumbria, the extra hotel expense, chuck in petrol and food etc and you would look at about £180.
Did the format work? Well going into the last round of games on Day 2 three of the five counties at Redcar could in theory still finish top so I suppose it ticked the box, although the 12 points for the overall seems steep.
We have read that other venues where the last game was a dead rubber and instead of letting the counties get an early finish the were allegedly made to play it.
At one venue the host county tied everything up yet the remaining four counties had to play a dead rubber, at another things were tied up with a session to spare but again another dead rubber had to be played and it was replicated at a third venue. The sanction of no entry into 2026 had the counties not played all their games probably needs to be looked at with a bit of common sense to prevail.
Overall though the weekend had it’s good points and a few things that need to be tweaked. Going forward hopefully feedback from the players will wing its way back to Bowls England to digest.
So out of a score of 10 we will give it a good 7½ with the added text promising first effort but Richard needs to concentrate and avoid being distracted by his peers……. oh no that was my school report.