North Cliff star Nigel Trotter earns victory at Bridlington Bay Over-60s singles merit
On Friday there was an Over-60s singles merit at Bridlington Bay with 28 entries after a late withdrawal and sponsored by Major Carpets of Bridlington and Naturally Compliant (Glasgow).
The weather, for Yorkshire Day, was fine but with mixed sunshine and cloud.
Up to the semi-finals games were played with 3 on the card but, as there were no time pressures, the last two rounds were played off scratch.
The green could best be described as “interesting” as it started out heavy after overnight rain, then speeded up under the influence of the sun and breeze before seemingly slowing down again.
In the first round there were some slightly surprise results.
The first was purely in the margin when Geoff Oldham (Hunmanby) won 21-7 against Geoff Price but the second saw David Muir (Eastfield) win 21-15 against Eddie Haigh (Huddersfield).
Roger Lambert (Bridlington Bay) had a good 21-18 win against Tony Bland (Borough) and Peter van de Gevel (Hunmanby) beat another Huddersfield bowler, Malcolm Gilbert, 21-18.
In the second round Barrie Watson (Borough) had a comfortable 21-14 win against Phil Todd (Hunmanby) while Oldham was pressed by Tim Purcell (Whitby) before winning 21-18.
Muir had another good win, tis time 21-18, against Dave Clarke (Dukes Park) to set up a quarter-final against Nigel Trotter (North Cliff) who won 21-14 against Ronnie Noble (Borough).
Chris Dobson (Dukes Park) went through 21-14 against Tom Muckley (Hunmanby) while Ian Richardson (North Cliff) also won 21-14 against Lambert. Billy Holdsworth won an all-Hunmanby game against Harry Old 21-14 to set up yet another game against this wife Sue who won another all-Hunmanby game against van de Gevel 21-17.
In the first quarter-final Oldham went through 21-17 against Watson to face Trotter who had a comfortable 21-9 win against Muir. Dobson was pushed by Richardson but won 21-17 while in the Holdsworth game Billy won 21-10.
Trotter was merciless in the first semi-final beating Oldham 21-6 while Holdsworth was taken a bit further by Dobson before winning 21-12.
The final started out evenly with the scores being level at 8-8 after 10 ends.
Trotter took a 14-10 lead after the next 4 ends before Holdsworth pulled 1 back for 14-11.
Trotter then went into overdrive and scored 7 without reply in the next 5 ends to win 21-11.