Triples competition is up and running - The Redditch Standard

Triples competition is up and running

Redditch Editorial 2nd May, 2018   0

THE SWAN Studley Skittles League annual triples competition got under way when 23 teams contested the first round in four groups, with only the top two teams in each group progressing to the final rounds.

Group one saw Lodge Farmers A lead over all five legs to qualify very comfortably thanks to Graham Hingley making the group’s best score of 40 (15-stack), Kim Clewlow 33 (14-stack) and Ron Lewis 33.

The other qualifiers Team BG C were, after leg two, bottom of the group before getting their act together to make it through with something to spare. Their scorers were Alex Bird with 35 (12-stack), Jordan Cockette 31 and Mary Withers 30.

A slight surprise in the group was to see the trios of Engineers B and Alcester Nomads B fail to make a more telling impact.




Alcester Nomads A easily won group two and were only temporarily displaced from top spot at the completion of leg three. They had Mac Eaton making the group’s top score of 46 (16-stack), Bob Browning 37 and Alan Cummimgs 36.

It was Lodge Farmers C who briefly led the group after leg three when Richard Long returned a 15-stack before consolidating their grip on the second qualifying place with good scores over the last two legs.


Richard Long finished with 45 pins, Lynne Pemberton 34 in her first skittles game for many years and Lynne Long 27.

There were few problems for Jumbo Jet Set A who booked their finals spot after leading throughout their group with Mick Stanton returning 41 (11-stack), Dan Hill 38 and Rob Quartly 37.

The drama, though, was reserved for the tussle for the second spot. Lodge Farmers B had Jason Kirk making 43 (15-stack), Chris Pritchard 32 and Tim Jones 28 but, having been in second place throughout and needing only 15 pins in their last leg, suddenly struggled and made just 14.

It meant a sudden-death play-off with Swingers B – comprising the Clifton family of Paul, Ben and John. A nominated player from each team contested the play-off with Paul Clifton scoring five pins, which Jason Kirk pipped with six pins to put his team through.

Yet more drama was in the low-scoring group four. Initially, the unfancied Swingers A team of Tony Howell with 36 pins, Christine Hallam 31 and Norman Sutton 29 narrowly topped the group – a great effort – given their parent team’s poor league season.

Then the drama unfolded around them. Alcester Nomads C had led after the first four legs to look favourites to progress to the finals, while Engineers A looked likely to join them having always been in close contention.

However, they both reckoned without a great finish from Team BG B. Even so, the two favourites did not need many pins to qualify, so it was surprising the Nomads team failed completely while the Engineers trio at least scraped a play-off with Team BG.

Engineers’ luck then held when Ray Cartwright for Team BG only managed two pins and, scoring only marginally better for Engineers, was Andy Clewlow with four to put his team through.

During the group games, Engineers’ scorers were Andy Clewlow with 37, Brandon Kelso 29 and Ian Greenway 27, while Team BG had scores of 37 from Gail Stringer, 35 from Ray Cartwright and 21 from Nina Moore.

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