The Federation of Crown Green Bowls

YOUTH / JUNIOR 2011

It has been another harrowing yet successful year as the junior/youth official for the Federation of Crown Green Bowls.

The pre season was once again a hectic time trying to prepare the fixtures.

Seven associations wanted to play in each of the age groups.

East Lancashire, Furness, Heavy Woollen, Leeds, Ormskirk, Rochdale and Warrington in the junior section and East Lancashire, Furness, Heavy Woollen, Leeds, Leeds ‘A’, Rochdale and Warrington in the youths.

They fixtures were produced with all teams playing each other 1 ½ times.

The first game would be the traditional 8 man teams, with the second being 4 man.

Unfortunately, on the morning of the first round of matches, Rochdale phoned me before they set off to say that only two youth players had turned up for the coach, so they would not be competing in the youth section at Furness.

This left just Furness and Warrington, so it was decided that they would play each other 3 times, with no players playing each other twice.

Rochdale informed me that their youth team would not be competing at any of the rounds this year.

This meant that we had 6 youth and 7 junior teams.

Heavy Woollen failed to send a youth team in the final round of matches, so with teams having played an unequal number of games, the title was decided on an average score, with points accumulated being divided by games played.

Leeds romped away with the youth title, with East Lancashire runners up.

Furness finished 4 points clear of Leeds to take the junior title.

The Youth, Intermediate and Junior Merit competition played again at Roe Lee Park Blackburn, ran very smoothly.

The park has 3 greens and each staged a section, with the intermediates playing on the top green, the juniors on the middle and youth on the bottom green.

In the 12 and under section Furness player Kieren Clark retained the title beating Ormskirk’s Matthew Gill 21-5. The same two players also met in the 2010 final.

Joe Cranston of Leeds won the 13-16 age group defeating Tom Harris of Furness 21-16 in the final.

In the 17-20 age group, North Yorkshire’s Adam Brigg lifted the trophy, defeating Ashley Wilcock from Leeds 21-12.

There were 48 entries each paying £3 to enter.

East Lancashire, through Peter Hodgkinson and Jim Cunningham kindly donated £66 to increase the prize money to £210.

The winners in each section received £30, runners up £20 and semi finalists £10.

I would like to thank all the official from the association for the effort they have put in running their teams.

Without them there would be no teams.

I would also like to thank the officials from the associations who staged matches for sending me the results of the matches so promptly.

I would also like to thank David Kay for the assistance he has given me during the season.

Finally, will all associations please fill in and return their registration forms to me by the 15th of January 2012.

The Federation of Crown Green Bowls