Callum Wraight secures East Coast of Yorkshire Crown Green Bowls Festival victory

A warm and sunny Monday saw North Cliff host a singles competition.

The semis saw Stuart Thompson (Castleford) lose to Kevin Gates (Dukes Park) and Gary Thornton (Eastfield), fresh from a Hospital Cup win, lost to top player Callum Wraight (Shrewsbury). Gates and Wraight progressed to the final, won by the latter.

In a consolation competition for players who lost their first games which was won by organiser Paul Morgan (Whitby), Wraight’s first “victim”, beating Bev Shannon (Doncaster) in the final.

On Tuesday there was a Two Player Team event at Hunmanby.

In this type of competition pairs of bowers play each other but in two games of singles rather than as pairs. After first games, which are usually played to competition to give the losing players a full game the ties finish when one side can no longer win to avoid a, potentially, very long day.

The 21 full entrants were supplemented by five Hunmanby bowlers to make 13 pairs.

In the semis Wraight and Craig Hopwood (Castleford) beat Sue Emmerson and Kenny Wale (both Whitby) while Morgan and Callum Malone (North Cliff) beat Hunmanby pairing Harry Old and Glyn Goodyear.

In the final Wraight beat Morgan 21-14. The game between Hopwood and Malone was closer but at the end Hopwood won 21-14.

A consolation singles event saw Jack Richardson (Hunmanby) beat Katie Gates (Dukes Park) 21-19.

On Wednesday, the competition was a Doubles played at Borough.

The entry was up to 38, or 19 pairs, and to give everyone the chance of two games it was played as a “Round Robin” with five groups of 3 pairs and one group of 4 pairs, the group winners plus the two best second placed pairs qualifying for the quarter finals.

The quarter finals produced the first major upset of the Festival in the game between Callum Wraight/Craig Hopwood and Katie Morgan (Doncaster)/Kevin Gates.

With the score at 20-20 there were three “dead ends” with both Gates and Wraight making excellent strikes to “kill” the end by sending the jack into the ditch.

In what turned out to be the final end Wraight put his final wood alongside the jack, in the middle of the green, only for Gates to play with controlled weight to push the jack away from Wraight’s wood for the necessary point to win a brilliant game 21-20.

The semis saw Debra and Paul Stallard (Westgate) lose to Morgan and Gates and Shaughan Temple and Barrie Watson (both Borough) beat Sue Emmerson and Kenny Wale.

The final, between Morgan/Gates and Temple/Watson was a tight affair finishing 21-20 to Morgan and Gates.

The win came after Temple and Watson had led for much of the game having opened up a big early lead before Morgan and Gates came back to win.

Thursday saw a “Power Play” singles at Bridlington Bay.

In this variation on a “normal” singles at every fifth end the points scored are doubled so players need to be very careful on those ends as they can easily concede 4 points.

Equally a game where one player needs 4 or fewer points can wrap up a win very quickly.

Twenty-three players competed in this and once again Wraight was eliminated at the quarter final stage, this time by Kevin Siddle (Crossgates).

The semis saw Stuart Thompson beat Callum Malone (North Cliff) 21-13 and Kenny Wale lost 21-18 to Crossgates’ Kevin Siddle. The latter dominated the final winning 21-10.

A consolation competition saw Emmo Emmerson (Whitby) beat Jacob Morgan (Denby Grange) 21-9 in the final.

The final, played on Friday at Eastfield, was a normal singles competition with seeding based on performances in earlier rounds.

The seeds, in order, were Wraight, Kevin Gates, Siddle and Thompson.

In the second round, Wraight beat Sue Emmerson 21-2, Gates beat Daz Cookson (Meanwood Park, Leeds) 21-16, Thompson beat David Muir (Eastfield) 21-16 whilst Siddle lost 17-21 to Wale.

In the quarter-finals Wraight beat Steve Shannon (Doncaster) 21-6, Gates beat Paul Morgan 21-19, Wale beat Katie Morgan 21-14 and Thompson beat Geoff Watson (Whitby) 21-15.

In the semis, 1st seed Wraight beat 4th seed Thompson 21-14 with 2nd seed Gates beating the unseeded Wale 21-10 to set up a final between the two top seeds.

A glance at the scoreline, 21-2 to Wraight, suggest that this was little more than a walkover.

It was certainly a convincing win but one that was entirely down to some superb bowling from Wraight who gave a masterclass in bowling relatively short marks to the spectators.

It also disguises the fact that Gates did not bowl badly; in fact he generally bowled well.

A consolation competition, a drawn pairs for first game losers and for any other bowler saw 12 enter and in the final Katie Gates and Sue Emmerson beat Emmo Emmerson (Whitby) and David Wicks (Eastfield) 21-19.

The Festival was a big success in spite of the relatively low entry.

The weather certainly helped as, with the exception of a very few drops of rain on Thursday, it was fine for the whole week and sunny (and warm) for much of the time.

The trophies were presented by the East Coast Association Chair and trophy sponsor “Emmo” Emmerson of Starlight Embroidery.