Aussie Pairs : Sunday 2nd February 2025
A maximum of 20 teams entered the ‘Aussie Pairs’ competition on 2nd February in what is always a very popular format.
The CSMBA ran this competition at Wisbech St Mary Sports and Social Club with the kind permission and assistance of the Wisbech St Mary SMBC.
The entry was only limited in number due to the restriction in space and 5 mats. Even so we were all surprised when the competition was oversubscribed in just 4 days so thank you to all those members who managed to get a team place and to those who were unsuccessful, we are sorry but better luck next time.
The next ‘Aussie Pairs’ (Mixed) will be run at MIBC on Sunday 1st June 2025 when we will be able to accept 32 teams, so we hope to get very close to filling this one as well.
The competition on Sunday 2nd February was arranged over 8 rounds with each team playing 4 games of 6 ends.
There was some excellent play on the day and a lot of measuring requested resulting in some close decisions.
The break between rounds 5 and 6 was limited to less than 15 minutes to allow the raffle tickets to be sold. The raffle achieved £119.00 gross and after all deductions were made for the day a total of £84.15 in profit was credited to CSMBA funds so a good day all round.
Only two teams managed to win all four games and a total of four draws were recorded on the day with the eventual fourth placed team having 2 wins and 2 draws. This goes to show how close some of the matches were.
The final result was incredibly close with just +1 shot difference separating 1st and 2nd place.
The chairman presented prizes to the winners as follows.
1st Dawn Fincham and John Boddye = 8 points with a S/D of + 17
2nd Jayne Thorpe & Rob Bonello = 8 points with a S/D of +16
3rd Billy Chapman & Peter Griffiths = 7 points with a S/D of +15
4th Malcolm Spriggs & Barry Stanford = 6 points with a S/D of +16
Thankyou again to all those members who were very generous and made some really great raffle prize donations. Another enjoyable day of competitive short mat bowls.
David Wilcox
CSMBA Competitions Secretary Interim.