2025 Review

2025 is done and dusted, with our presentation night taking place in November. Let's see what we got up to. 

Short mat bowling at St Chads' Church

Short mat bowling continued to run on Monday nights from September 2024 through to March 2025, with the addition of a new mat supplied by Roy - thank you! This allowed us to run (literally) parallel games in our new league format: 18 participating bowlers earned points from the two randomly drawn games they played each session. Congratulations to newcomer Clive for winning the league, and also to Helen and Roy for winning the pairs competition. Short mat continues in 2025 through to March 2026, and we have Peter Turner and Worcestershire County Council to thank for their support. 

The green and sourrounds

We were somewhat blighted this year by a fox and hot, dry weather throughout most of the season. Thanks to Keith, Ken, Val, Ian, John P., Gethin, Sheila, Pam, Nigel, Mike P., Mike D., Pauline, Jerome and probably others we've forgotten for their work in maintaining the green and surrounds. An entire season's worth of rain in the last couple of league weeks and since is helping the green recover over the winter. 

Inhouse competitions

As ever, we ran various inhouse competitions. Winners were:

• Peter Bourne Doubles: Keith Moore and John Penn

• Handicap Cup: Keith Moore

• Round Robin: Mike Dodsworth

• Triple J Triples: Simon Roderick, Gethin Phillips, Caroline Castling-Biggs 

• J2O Newbies cup: Roy Watton

• Club Individual: Simon Roderick

• Consolation Cup: Mark Blackburn

Ladies success

The Dudley league ladies team achieved an impressive second place in Division 1 this year, improving on fourth last year. Ellen Aindow, Charlotte Richards, Amy Dandy and Penny Moore also contributed to the Dudley ladies county team's success this year, winning the President's group of matches.

Development 

More bowlers took to the start of their league careers this year, with most of them achieving their first wins - too many to list here, although a special mention goes out to Bernard, who saw his first win since starting in 2023. These positive results were partly due to coaching but also their self-organisation into Monday and Friday night rollup sessions, where they were able to develop their game in a friendly, social atmosphere. Others progressed their game with more team bowling after an initial dipping of their toe in 2024 - thanks to the Thursday, Tuesday and Friday B teams, and both Wednesday B teams for welcoming and developing those new bowlers. 

Trevor, Kevin and Liz played in the J2O 'newbies' competition, set up for bowlers in their first year. This is organised by Phill Ellett at WWCBA, and was played at Hamstead. Thanks all for organising. 

League results - Weekday Teams

We fielded 15 teams this year - the same number as in 2024 but with a bit of shuffling: an extra Wednesday lunchtime over 55s team; no Saturday lunchtime team, as some people expressed preference for playing on Sunday morning instead. 

Our Tuesday over 60s South West Birmingham A team did very well this year, winning Division 4 - Roy Phillips also won the division averages with a 14/4 win/loss count. In Division 6 our B team came seventh out of 11 places. Our two Wednesday Dudleys League over 55s teams also did well, to finish in fourth and fifth place of Division 6. We also had two daytime teams in the over60s section of the Heart of England league, this year ending third place in Division 4 and winning Division 6, hopefully earning promotion. 

Our Wednesday evening Yardley Wood Superleague teams continued to thrive: with the A team winning their division two years in a row, pushing them up to Division 1 in 2026; the B team came close to a promotion spot, after a tough few final weeks, ending a very respectable fourth in Division 3. 

The Thursday A and B teams in the Heart of England league both struggled a little this year, despite strong efforts throughout the season. As our development team, the B team was privileged to host a lot of new faces, and we are proud to say they only lost one of their home matches this season. 

League results - Weekend Teams 

Saturdays this year saw two teams in the Warwick and Worcester afternoon league. The A team finished fourth in Division 5, while the B team came eighth in Division 7. 

Sundays saw our Northfield league Division 2 side take tenth place, while the B team came eighth in the Division 3.