​Whitby Bowling Club’s Paul Morgan wins Centenary Boyes Cup at Dukes Park

By Andy Bloomfield
Published 16th Jul 2023, 07:00 BST
Paul Morgan won the Centenary Boyes Cup.Paul Morgan won the Centenary Boyes Cup.
Paul Morgan won the Centenary Boyes Cup.
​This year marked the centenary of the East Coast of Yorkshire Crown Green Bowling Association’s William Boyes Cup competition.

The silver trophy was presented to the Association in 1923 and has been played for ever since as an annual singles competition.

It would appear that the only year in which it was not contested was 2020 although it would take a detailed examination of the names inscribed on the cup itself and its base to confirm this.

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It was certainly contested between 1939 and 1945 as winners are recorded for all the war years.

Picture shows first time winner Paul Morgan being presented with the 100 year old trophy by East Coast President Pete Charter whilst East Coast fixture secretary David Muir, who ran the competition looks onPicture shows first time winner Paul Morgan being presented with the 100 year old trophy by East Coast President Pete Charter whilst East Coast fixture secretary David Muir, who ran the competition looks on
Picture shows first time winner Paul Morgan being presented with the 100 year old trophy by East Coast President Pete Charter whilst East Coast fixture secretary David Muir, who ran the competition looks on

The list of winners includes many fine local players who, sadly are no longer with us including the likes of Mick Jessop, Barry FitzPatrick and Wilf Walker.

One particularly interesting sequence of winners is for 2017, 2018 and 2019 when the cup was won successively by the late Mick Gates of Borough, his daughter Jo Gates and then his son Kevin Gates.

Initially each club in the area nominated one player to represent them in competing for the cup but at some point in its history this was widened so each club could enter a number of its members.

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Currently each of the nine clubs between Whitby and Bridlington (from north to south, Whitby, Robin Hoods Bay, North Cliff, Borough, Eastfield, Hunmanby, Bridlington Bay, Westgate and Dukes Park) can enter up to six players and the winner from the previous year gets an additional automatic entry.

The Centenary competition was held on Sunday July 9 at Dukes Park, Bridlington and 43 players, both male and female, played on a day that started out as relatively cool but which became very warm in the afternoon.

Play commenced just before 10am and the final was completed just before 7pm with all games having been played off scratch.

As is often the case with a random draw there were some tough clashes in the early stages and some cases of players being drawn against their clubmates.

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The first finalist was Andy Deighton (Dukes Park) who beat Geoff Oldham and Jack Richardson (both Hunmanby), and clubmates Kevin Gates and Geoff Price in the quarter-final and semi-final.

The second was Paul Morgan (Whitby) who beat clubmate Jo Leeman, Chris Dobson (Dukes Park) and Alan Landers (North Cliff).

The final started with Morgan taking a 6-0 lead before Deighton pulled back to 7-6. Morgan then extended his lead to 14-9 when Deighton rallied again and reduced the deficit to 14-13.

After five more ends with only one point being scored in each Morgan led 18-14 and then recorded a two to need only one for victory.

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Deighton scored a two in reply but Morgan’s first wood in the next end was enough to give him victory by 21-16.

All in all a very good day’s bowling to cap a weekend when two of our local sides progressed in Yorkshire competitions.

Dukes Park beat Morton House at Thorner to reach the quarter-finals of the Eric Hutchinson Cup where they will play either Meanwood Park or Cowcliffe Libs B while Borough beat Rastrick A at Allerton Bywater to reach the semis of the Derrick Radley Cup where they will face either Pontefract or Magnet Sports (Tadcaster), all matches to be played on neutral greens on Saturday July 22.