Sunday, November 10th 2013
There were 29 teams entered for the Cobbetts Poppy Doubles at Burridge on Sunday, November 10th. Not quite a full-house but a good entry none the less with teams travelling from all around the region ranging from Worthing, Handcross and Arundel in the east, Crondall and Bordon in the north, to Poole in the west as well as teams from several local clubs. After the heavy rain of the previous few days, it was a relief to see the sunshine and it was great that it stayed with us for the whole day.
There were seven morning leagues with the top 8 teams qualifying for the main competition. The next 8 were in the plate competition, followed by the next 8 in the wooden spoon and finally the last 5 teams were in the ‘Oh Dear Never Mind’ competition! Safely through to the main competition were the defending champions Roz Silvester and Dave Lucas along with Angela Brooks and Tony Jackson, the ‘Bouledogs’ from Worthing, and the mother and son team of Karen and Mark Robertshaw from Fareham. Also through were Harrison Ash and Chris Mitchell, a new player from Bordon playing in his first competition, and four teams from the home club, Cobbetts. The draw kindly kept all the home teams apart in the quarter-finals and they made the most of this and their home advantage to make both semi-finals all Cobbetts affairs!
Dave Stubbs and Richard Greeves, having beaten last year’s champions in the quarter finals, overcame David Cruz and Chris Barron in an interesting semi-final match with David shooting the jack numerous times to keep his team in the game. In the other semi-final Mike Porter, playing with Ali Stubbs had to settle for a semi-final trophy on his birthday as they were beaten by the club president, Alan Forse, teamed with Steve Daykin. After some excellent play from both teams, Dave and Richard ran out winners in the final.
There were plenty of other prize winners including another home player, Steve Lombard, winning the plate competition with wife Karen and newcomer Chris Mitchell winning the consolage with Harrison.
Many thanks to all the people who helped organise the various fund-raising activities, especially Lyn Porter who worked tirelessly all day in the kitchen. Also, thank you to those who helped by donating raffle prizes and of course to all the players who entered, bought food, poppies, raffle tickets and tried their luck at shoot the egg! £300 was raised by this event for the Poppy Appeal in 2012 and it is hoped that, when the sums have been done for this year, this figure will be exceeded