Sidmouth Herald published 27 August 2015
Once again the Sidmouth B-level advanced tournament was very popular and highly successful with players attending the oversubscribed event from various parts of the UK, writes David Temple.
The tournament was managed by Nancy Temple for the sixth successive year. The weather was very unsettled and on the Friday morning, after a night and early morning of torrential rain, the lawns flooded and the morning’s play had to be abandoned.
However, the rain slackened off quite quickly and the lawns drained rapidly, the players took an early lunch and the games were shortened to two-and-a-half hours and play ran into the evening.
By lunch time on the third day it became clear that the winner of each block was obvious and neither could be caught by others in their respective blocks.
Andrew Webb (Pendle and Craven) was the winner of one block with five wins and one defeat. Howard Bowron (Penrith) won the other block similarly.
In the final, each player started cautiously and defensively. A few hoops were made by each. There was an interesting contrast in roqueting styles. Bowron used a straight arm action concentrating on the striker’s ball by looking down between his arms. Webb opted for a more direct approach with two or three swings over the striker’s ball and then putting the mallet on the ground, lining it up with object ball and hitting the striker’s ball hard and fast.
Bowron took control with a break to four back. He then took advantage of Webb sudden loss of roqueting form and took his second ball to peg. The same thing happened again and Boron took his first ball to peg. He failed to get a rush to peg and Webb hit in on the east boundary with the lift shot.
Webb then took his ball from hoop one to four back. Bowron missed the lift roquet and Webb took his other ball from hoop six to three back. Bowron hit in. Time was called and he pegged out one of his balls. Webb made a three ball break from hoop six to three back on his last turn, and we all started to think he might have had a chance against all the odds but he missed the hoop.
Bowron therefore won the game and the tournament. Congratulations to him for he has been coming to this event for several years and now has been rewarded.
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