Nigel Trotter claims Eastfield Over-60s Merit final win against Gary Thornton

Even this hung in the balance as it was originally scheduled to be played at Westgate but, following the thaw, the green was felt to be unsafe to be played on, writes David Muir.

Fortunately Eastfield were able to step in at very short notice thanks to the kitchen volunteers.

Although it was a chilly day the turnout of 21 bowlers was respectable.

In the main competition games were all played with 3 on the card and in the consolation Tea & Biscuits (T&B) competition there was 5 on the card.

This worked very well as the two competitions finished with a few minutes of each other and in full daylight.

With 5 games in the preliminary round 5 jacks were used up to the quarter final stage when 2 more were put on to accommodate the T&B.

The first preliminary round game saw Geoff Coleman (Whitby) going out 21-17 to Borough’s Barrie Watson while Chris Dobson (Dukes Park) recorded a 21-12 win against Ashley Douglas (Eastfield).

Gary Thornton (Borough) won 21-13 against Eddie Maxwell (Whitby), Keith Davies (Hunmanby) had a 21-20 win against Eastfield’s John Jarvis coming back from being well down and his clubmate Harry Old won an all-Hunmanby game against Alan Kynaston 21-9.

In the first round Alan Lee (North Cliff) won a close game 21-18 against Geoff Watson (Whitby) while another Whitby bowler, Kenny Rodgers won by the same score against Larry Dixon (Westgate). Robert Child (N Cliff) had a comfortable 21-8 win against a newcomer from Borough Brian Dalby while Cliff clubmate Nigel Trotter faced another newish Borough player, Malcolm Naylor and won 21-11.

A third Cliffer. Ian Richardson, beat David Muir (Eastfield) 21-14 in a game that was rather closer than the score suggested to face Borough’s Barrie Watson who had a comfortable 21-7 win against Eileen Greenwood (Eastfield).

The quarter-final line-up was completed when Thornton scored a 21-5 win over Dobson, another game where the scoreline belied the play, and Davies who beat Old 21-18.

The first quarter-final saw Lee eliminate Rodgers 21-18 while Trotter won the all-North Cliff clash against Child 21-12.

Richardson had another 21-14 win, this time against Barrie Watson while Thornton ended Davies’ fine run 21-11.

Trotter won his second all-Cliff game, this time against Lee, 21-15 to set up a final against Thornton who beat Richardson, ironically by the same 21-14 margin that Richardson had won his first games by.

The final started out evenly with the score standing at 7-7 after 6 ends before trotter pulled away winning the next 5 ends to lead 13-7.

Thornton pulled 1 back only for Trotter to take the next 5 ends to lead 20-8. The winning score proved to be slightly elusive as Thornton won the next 2 ends before Trotter secured the win 21-11.

As there were only eight entries for the T&B it was played as a singles rather than a drawn pairs.

The first game saw Naylor claw his way back from being well behind to beat Greenwood 21-20 while in a battle of Geoffs from Whitby, Watson beat Coleman 21-11.

In the other half of the draw Dixon won comfortably, 21-10 against Jarvis to set up a semi-final against Kynaston who had a 21-7 win against Maxwell.

The two semi-finals were reasonably comfortable with Watson beating Naylor 21-13 and Kynaston winning 21-14 against Dixon.

The final was the proverbial “game of two halves” with Geoff Watson running away to a 17-8 lead after 12 ends against Hunmanby’s Alan Kynaston, the latter then pulled things back to 18-12 before Watson scored a 2 to stand 20-12.

Yet again the final score was difficult as Kynaston scored 4 in 3 ends before Watson finally edged over the line 21-16.

Sadly the adverse weather led to the cancellation of Sunday’s merit at Robin Hoods Bay as the green was still frozen solid on Thursday and more severe frost was forecast for Friday and Saturday evenings.

The next merit of 2025 will, weather permitting, be at Borough on Sunday, January 26.

As usual the main competition starts at 9am with the T&B starting at a convenient point.

Entry is, as usual, on the day so bowlers ideally need to be there by 8:55am to enable the draw to be made for a prompt start.

Anyone wanting to play in just the T&B should try to be there by about 11am to ensure they are entered in the draw.​