15-16 OCTOBER

TEA Gardens Country Club lawn bowls history was made this weekend when the little bowling club at Tea Gardens shook off its ‘easy beat’ mantle and instead roared back to life in a display of bowls that will go down in our folklore as one of the amazing two days of bowls in living memory.

Both the First National sponsored Division 3 and 4 sides made the Sectional playoffs of the Newcastle District Pennant competition, both only conceding one loss for the season.

They then had to make their way through the Sectional winners round to qualify for the finals.

This required that they play sudden-death knockout rounds against four opponents to win the Pennant.

That one side should achieve this feat would be outstanding but to have both sides go through would be amazing.
Division 3 played their games at the East Maitland Bowling Club and achieved the following results;

On Saturday, in round one they played Soldiers Point and won 77-40.

In the afternoon they played another strong club, Beresfield and won 65-48.

Meanwhile, Division 4 were playing their rounds at Beresfield and won their morning game against Lambton 77-40.

They backed up this win in the afternoon beating Beresfield, 65-48.

With both sides through to the semi-final stage on Sunday Division 3 beat Bar Beach, 67-55 and Division 4 made it through accounting for Hamilton North, 82-53.

Finals are always nail-biting events and supporters rode every shot with Division 3 taking on Windale-Gateshead and Division 4 opposing Adamstown.

Division 4 started slowly and appeared to be in trouble in the early ends, but they gathered their momentum and finally strode away to win the first Club Pennant in thirteen years, downing Adamstown 66-44.

One down, one to go.

I was not at this match but the score in the Division 3 game tells me that it was not all plain sailing.

Their 65-55 win though was good enough to secure the second Pennant and the little Club that others had discounted, pulled off the feat of winning two Pennants in one day.

The unbelievable had just happened.

Congratulations to both sides, a fabulous result for the little Club that is little no more.

12 October

Great weather today saw 52 bowlers on the greens with 2 visitors.

The morning game was decided by the ‘Highest winning score’ and with a score of 21 Bill Heylbut, Paul Carter, and Bruce Murray were the winners.

The afternoon game was won by Ron Green, Ian Baker, and Bill Thrift with the result decided by the ‘Lowest winning score.’

They had a score of 10.

The overall winners on the day were Geoff Page, Graeme Watkins, and Keith Smith with a score of 32.

The Garden Eatery voucher was won by Paul Carter.

Our thanks to the Garden Eatery for their support.

In other news.

There are some ‘must do’ events coming up in November.

Expressions of interest sheets will be posted shortly they include:

November 5 and 6: Burwood RSL bowlers are coming with 28 players.

November 19 and 20: Belmont bowlers are visiting.

Nov 26th and 27th is our 16up tournament.

John Slater

By John SLATER