2010 National Skittles Final Report
This year's finals were held at Cheltenham CS Club on Saturday 5 June 2010 with 5 regions competing.
They were Scotland, N.Ireland, North West, Midlands and South West with 45 players from 150 who competed in the regional qualifiers. Unfortunately the Southern Region had to drop out at the last minute due the unavailability of a couple of their players and the Welsh Region could not hold their regional qualifier as they hold their competitions in the afternoons and the HMRC and DVLA have stopped all leave for such events but they are hoping to enter next year as they will have to look at all their events with a view to holding them either in the evenings or at weekends as all other regions have had to do for many years.
This year's event went well and was closely contested. In the first round of matches the Midlands, Scotland and the S.West won their games. In the second and third rounds of games the Midlands faded but the S.West and Scotland teams won so going into the last games the SW and Scotland were on 3 wins each and had to play each other in the last game. Scotland established a lead with 2 spares in the first leg but in the third leg of five the SW scored 2 spares of 17 and 15 which gave them an unassailable lead going into the last 2 legs and they won comfortably with the winning balls being thrown by the first player in the 5th leg. In 3rd place were Midlands with N.Ireland 4th and N.West 5th.
This was an excellent result for the SW team called the Bath Bristols as they were a new team in only their second year of entry. There was some high scoring with 10 spares being scored, 5 of which came from the winning team.
The winning team was captained by Vernon Herridge together with Steve Wharram, Martin Sharratt, Rob Pugh, Steve Bletso, Steve Blake and Graham Sandall.
The trophies were presented by Pete Fischer the CSSC Vice Chairman.
Thanks must go to the Cheltenham Club for hosting the event and for the hospitality and buffet. Also thanks to the stickers-up who toiled on a very hot day and kept up with play exceptionally well.
John West
Organiser
Right: Photo of winning South West (Bath Bristols) team
L-R Graham Sandall, Steve Blake, Martin Sharratt, Vernon Herridge(Capt.), Steve Wharram, Rob Pugh and Steve Bletso.
