BOWLS – THE SPORT FOR ALL!
What a remarkable sport is bowls. The biggest selling point of our fabulous, ancient and quirky game came home to me quite forcibly when I attended the Clevedon Bowls Tournament (writes David Rhys Jones). Yes, bowls is truly the sport for all.
Attending finals day at the Promenade Club, where the legendary David Bryant started his career, I was gobsmacked when I realised that the age difference between the winners of the men’s singles and the women’s singles was a staggering 65 years.
Congresbury’s Madi King, who defeated defending champion Becky McDonald, from Weston St Andrews, 21-17, in the women’s final, become, by some stretch, the youngest-ever winner of the title. She was 16 years and 204 days old, while the 81-year-old Derek Demery, who beat his Clevedon Promenade clubmate Gary Hancox, 21-9, in the men’s final, is believed to be the oldest competitor to win the men’s title.
In the September 2016, edition of Bowls International, the nine-year-old Madi appeared on the cover as we featuredher enthusiasm for bowls. Two days after her triumph at Clevedon, she was up in Leamington, partnering Imogen Cracknell in the first round of the national Under 25 pairs championship. The two Somerset girls put up a fine display but just lost out narrowly to Hunts duo Chloe Brett and Becca Moorbey.
After his win the men’s singles final, an emotional Derek, who has been playing bowls at the Prom for 35 years, revealed that the bowls he used in the tournament were given to him by his close friend Ray Pitts, who passed away just before Christmas, 2022.
“Yes,” said Derek. “I was not only using Ray’s bowls, but I was wearing his shoes as well!”
Winner of numerous club titles, he considers this latest Open win to be a career best.
We know that age is just a number’, but it is interesting to note that, like Derek, Reg Birmingham, the middle-man in the Congresbury trio that won the men’s triples title, is also 81. Remarkably, Reg recalls playing in the final of the same event 60 long years ago.
Then there was the evergreen local star Margaret Dyer, a member of ‘The Prom’, who had a distinguished international career indoors between 1990 and 2000. Margaret is a member of the PBA, and still enters qualifying events under the World Bowls Tour banner. She partnered Clevedon’s Terri Cuff to the final of the women’s pairs – at the age of 91!
The tournament is jointly run by members of the Clevedon and Clevedon Promenade clubs, who take it in turns to host finals day.
The tournament, which used to be played at seven venues in North Somerset, has been under new management since 2010, and has been scaled back – but it still attracts players from all over the country, and is known for its friendly atmosphere.
Becky McMillan, who won the national indoor singles title in April, may have lost in the women’s singles final, but she found solace by winning the pairs, with sister Jenny, and the triples, when the two were joined by a third sister Sophie. The Prom’s own Allan Smith partnered Will Matthews, from Woodbridge Hill in Surrey to the pairs title that they first won in 2010.
Barry Baker, Reg Birmingham and Clive Shipway, from Congresbury, won the men’s triples, while the mixed pairs was won by Prom duo Eileen Perham and Jack Fuidge, who beat West Backwell’s Emma Price and Adam Knights, 12-11, in the final.
Afterwards, Price, who played well, revealed that she was in her first year of bowls – another reason to suggest that bowls is a marvellous sport.
Caption: Madi King and Derek Demery
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