The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
All-conquering Royal Mail Cart Bowls Club won their fifth trophy of the season by retaining their County Club Championship title.
After winning their local league, Mail Cart were Spalding’s representatives at these championships, which were held at Blackstones in Stamford.
Their opponents in the final were Burton House from Boston – and it was an unexpected one-sided affair with Royal Mail Cart taking the lead early on and winning on all three rinks by ten ends.
Burton House acknowledged defeat at around 15 ends when the lead was 25 shots (63-38).
Although the rink skipped by Jordan Philpott was well in front for most of the game, the main damage in the end was done by the rink skipped by Dominic McVittie, with Harry Mycock, Chelsea Tomlin and Pete Horsfield, who won 30-14.
The Spalding side have now won the county club championships for the third time in four seasons and have dominated the county knockout competitions this season, now making it a clean sweep over EBF and EBA team county competitions.
Rink scores: Harry Mycock, Chelsea Tomlin, Pete Horsfield and Dominic McVittie – won 30-14; Ruby Hill, Martin Simpson, Graham Smith and Jordan Philpott – won 17-12; Steve Hill, John Allen, Simon Lilley and Martin Spencer – won 16-12.
- The previous week, Lincolnshire’s ladies’ county team won the national inter-county knockout competition, with the semi-final and final held at Leamington Spa.
The team included Royal Mail Cart’s Ruby Hill, Chelsea Tomlin and Tracy Philpott and Moulton Harrox’s Marion Perkins.
In the semi-final, a comfortable 149-85 win against Wiltshire saw them through to the final.
Lincolnshire won on five of the six rinks but the rink skipped by Commonwealth Games silver medallist, Amy Pharaoh, had an impressive 36-5 rink win.
Their final opposition were defending champions, Surrey, who beat Lincolnshire in the semi-final last season.
Lincolnshire were not fazed at all and the final turned out to be a bit of an anti-climax, as Lincolnshire breezed to victory by winning on all six rinks and by 54 shots overall (142-88).
The top winning rink was skipped by Tomlin, who also had Hill at number three, as they won their rink 36-17 which included picking up a full house of eight shots on the final end of the match.
Lincolnshire ladies are always one of the favourites to lift the Johns Trophy at the start of the season however, it’s the first time they have won it since 2016.
- Royal Mail Cart’s Tracy Philpott came away with the ladies’ national two bowl singles title as Skegness hosted the national EBF championships in late August.
After helping Royal Mail Cart win the Durham Centenary the day before, in the quarter final of the two bowl singles she played against indoor England international, Danielle Martinson from Cleveland.
An impressive 21-12 win secured Philpott’s spot in the semi-final where she had another relatively comfortable win by beating E Hales from Durham, 21-14.
Her opponent in the final was an in-form Sophie Parnell, from Huntingdonshire, who was in the final of both the ladies’ two and four bowl singles.
Philpott did not let this faze her, though, as another 21-14 victory helped her win the national two-bowl singles and lift the trophy for the first time in her career.
