WHITE Hart have now completed three club tournaments in a Covid-ravaged season which has seen all local and national crown green bowling leagues cancelled.
Mike Estell and Ray Richards have shared the awards and provided three well-fought finals on the Headless Cross green.
The 2020 Club Championship had 18 entries and at the semi-final stage Estell defeated Sheila Humphreys 21-16 despite a fine display from the latter, who was only outplayed over the last few ends.
It was a similar story in the other semi as Richards had to battle past Ian Humphreys 21-17 in a close match.
Estell had narrowly beaten Richards in the club’s Summer Handicap final a fortnight earlier and this final proved to be another close affair which could have gone either way until Estell proved just the stronger in the home stretch to win 20-18.
The White Hart In-House Summer League was designed to partly fill the huge gaps left by the cancellation of all the local leagues and 15 members took part in an event spread over nearly two months and 93 games.
Two qualifying groups were drawn and the top two from each section went through to the semi-finals.
Richards had only lost two of his 14 group games in Group A and then faced Mick Perrins who had taken second place in Group B.
Defeat for Richards looked possible when Perrins took a 9-5 lead but the latter was pegged back and failed to score in the next four ends before Richards went on to win 21-13.
The other semi saw Kirk Wright, who had also only lost two games in winning Group B, facing Estell who had taken the Group A runner-up spot.
Wright took an 8-3 lead early on but could only score two shots over the next ten ends to go 15-9 down.
He then rallied in a see-saw match to lead 16-15 before Estell took control over the last five ends to win 21-16.
Richards and Estell were therefore meeting for the third time in club finals this year.
Estell won the first two but it was Richards who was far quicker out of the blocks this time, taking an 8-1 lead after seven ends.
At 18-6 the match looked over, but Estell showed his battling quality in taking the next six shots. Richards did not waver though and got over the line with seven shots to spare with a 21-14 success.
