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Southport Win 06 Festival

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SOUTHPORT WIN NW FED CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP (3/7/06)

 

Under glorious blue skies and scorching heat, the NW fed organised a very successful club championship at Southport on 1st and 2nd July.

Eight clubs competed in the two day tournament, comprising Golf, Short, Handicap and Advanced competitions. The South Lawns played well despite the substantial treatments they are currently receiving, whilst the infamous North Lawns presented a challenging test on their spongy surface. This annual tournament requires substantial logistics with fourteen lawns to be set out daily and about 70 meals to be catered for on each day.

The tournament was managed by Barry Keen, assisted by Simon Wolf (Short) and Val Bailey (Golf). The Golf event involved five clubs playing 89 games resulting in Culcheth beating all other clubs to take the Golf Shield. Four clubs contested the Short event, playing 30 games with Southport eventually winning the Shield. The Handicap event was very closely contested by four clubs with three clubs being equal leaders after the first day, however, Southport won the knock-out event on the Sunday. Six teams played in the Advanced event with Bury remaining undefeated throughout the weekend to take the Advanced Shield.

The overall club championship is decided by allocating one point for each match victory and three clubs were very closely positioned with Fylde in third place, Bury in second place with Southport winning the overall event by one point.Fest06_Bury_Adv

 

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Bowdon Exit 06 Longman Cup

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Longman Cup – Nottingham beat Bowdon 5-2 (22/5/06) by Michael Finnigan

There was no over-confidence amongst the Nottingham team when, after a morning’s rain sodden play at Bowdon, three close games resulted in Nottingham leading three-nil. Been there before, and learned the hard way that this does not guarantee an overall win! The lead had fluctuated in all three of the games, but eventually William Gee, in an immaculate Longman debut, pegged out his opponent’s forward ball and managed to stay clear to win +3. The Nottingham pair wrapped up the doubles soon afterwards, but Michael Finnigan kept everyone waiting for lunch until a lucky hit in after time led to his winning on the “golden hoop”.

In the afternoon William demonstrated the ability of youth to adapt quickly to the fast lawns of Bowdon (at least, Nottingham thought they were fast, but the home team assured us they were the slowest they had been all season) by beating Lorna Frost with considerable panache, thus securing the overall result in Nottingham’s favour. Just as well, as Barry Keene found his form to beat Martin Beacon, and Michael Finnigan was overwhelmed by Janice Moir. However, Nigel Hames-Keward added to the Nottingham total by wining another hard fought game against Steve Reynolds.

David Maugham Wins Southport Advanced for 5th Time

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David Maugham Wins Southport Advanced Fifth Time (23/4/06)

Southpoirt_AdvJub06_David_Maugham-Jub06In glorious Spring weather with lawns looking their best for years, a successful Jubilee Advanced Tournament attracted 18 competitors for the 22/23 April event.

For the fifth year in succession David Maugham (Bowdon), ranked number one in the world, beat Ian Lines (Bowdon) in a thrilling final (-8tp, +5tp, +5).

Photograph shows club President Alan Pidcock presenting the Advanced Jubilee Tankard to David Maugham (photo by Terry Foster).

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