Northern Championships results
Sat Mar 12 (Singles and Fours) and Sun Mar 13 (Pairs and Triples)
As usual, a big effort is required to stage these annual Northern Championships, not least in collecting and transporting mats (from Humberside, North Yorkshire, Leeds and Durham), preparing the hall on Friday evening, organizing the umpires and running the event. Much praise has already been posted on FaceBook (see NESMBA League (NEW)) and I know our committee and all our participants agree that all those involved deserve a huge THANK YOU.
The usual format was followed with each discipline having 32 entrants. In the initial round robin stages half of these are eliminated before the remaining 16 contest the the knockout stages. Our squad of 51 was composed of 5 Singles, 5 Pairs, 4 Triples and 6 Fours.
FOURS: With 6 entries, there were high hopes of a good day although Danny Langdon and Jean Bridges rinks both failed to reach the knockouts (last 16) in which Dave Herbert’s team were also eliminated. In the QF, Roger Ellis and Co were next to go. However the success of 2020 was repeated and in another all North Yorkshire Final, David Newsome, Steve Duffin, Neil Flynn and Jane Rudd beat Joseph & Jill Newsome, Daniel Agar and James Clark by 7-3. Dave, Neil and Jane were runners up last time so are well pleased to have gone 1 better this year.
SINGLES: On paper we had a very strong squad so the overall results were disappointing. As in the Fours, Danny Langdon did not progress and then Matthew, David and Joseph were all fallers in the first KO round whilst Francis did not survive his QF match.
PAIRS: A similar story to the Singles with Langdon/Boatman, Smith/Clark and Edwards/Herbert all failing to reach the last 16. The Newsome brothers went down in the QF but Steve Duffin and Neil Flynn went one better to reach the SF.
TRIPLES: A good start with all 4 entrants through into the knockouts but here, the trios of Mathew Jackson and Danny Langdon were fallers. The Newsome’s and Danielle Smith reached the QF whilst the best performance was from Francis Boatman, Dave Hunton and Dave Brown who reached the last 4.
COUNTY SHIELD: Points are allocated per discipline for anyone reaching the Quarter Finals (Winner=4 Runner-up=3 Losing SF=2 Losing QF=1. Only the top 4 qualifiers from each county are counted)
1 Derbyshire: 1 Durham: 2 Humberside: 9 Staffordshire
12 N Yorkshire: 14 W Yorkshire: 15 Stockport
