2010-06-01

West Midlands went into their penultimate fixture away to Hertfordshire in division tow of the Riley’s BDO Inter Counties Championships knowing they required a good result to keep them in touch with leaders London and more importantly to maintain the push for promotion back to division one.
After impressive results in their previous outing away to Berkshire the ladies were hoping to continue in the same vein, and that’s exactly what they did. The ‘B’ side began well with two in a row from Liz Arnold and Gemma Poole, who in turn had a 3-1 win over Lorriane McKenna and a 3-0 success against Rita Brownless. Deborah Essam pulled one back for the hosts when she beat Heather Wright 3-0, but with a further two consecutive wins, West Midlands were home and dry. Kim Fellows (16.34) turned on a lady of the match show beating Helen Talbot 3-0 and Natalie Harrison then chalked up the fourth and vital win when she recorded a close 3-2 victory over Sharon Cowell.
Lynne Taylor took the final game by 3-0 against Jacqui Simmons to put the result at 4-2 for the Away side.
The ‘A’ team, after going 1-0 down when Jodie Varney won 3-1 against Sarah Robbins, then twice took the lead before finishing all square at 3-3. At number two Claire Hobbs won 3-2 in her tie with Joanne Brosnan and then Tammy Chance (17.82) took the match award with another 3-2 result against Kathleen Ovens. Jane Phillips took the match to 2-2 with her 3-0 success over Diane Tolley, before Kath Jenkins assured the West Midlands of a share of the points with her 3-0 win against Amanda Essam. The last game went to the home team’s Janet Driscol, who beat Lisa Astbury 3-1.
The men’s ‘B were without a win in the last three fixtures however, they hadn’t lost any of them, they all finished 6-6. Unfortunately after the first six games it looked on the cards as though they were about to record their second loss of the season as they trailed 5-1. Ian Hartland, at number five was their only winner, a close 3-2 win over Mark Woodhams. For Hertfordshire there were wins for Barry Currant, Alex Hogg, Jonathon Creed, Steve Currant and Daniel Mitchell.
The second half was a little better as the opening five games all went with the first throw advantage. Peter Edmonds, Neil Pointon and Richard Foster were West Midlands winners and for the hosts Steve Davis and Peter Brown to put the running total at 7-4 to Hertfordshire. Rounding off the day was Alf Smith and Danny Coyle, with Coyle chalking up an award winning 26.53 average and a 301 win give a final scoreline of 7-5 to the home side.
The men’s ‘A’ got off to a cracking start winning the first five games thanks to Chris Plumpton, Mark Rollinson, Andy Forrester, Jamie Hughes and Peter Wyse, Anthony Tarry pulling one back for Hertfordshire in the sixth game when he won 3-2 against Danny Coyle.
The second half of the match was a similar story to the first. West Midlands kicked off with the first three winners, Dean Stewart, Ian Jones and Nicky Bache to open up an unassailable 8-1 lead. Peter Kosmalski was the home teams second winner, a 3-2 win in the tenth encounter against Avtar Singh, but it was now immaterial as West Midlands added another win to their tally, Matt Dicken beating David Meader 3-1 and to round off the match long time West Midlands player Lol Frazer beat George Williamson 3-1 with a 28.81 average that gave him the man of the match award, his team a 10-2 victory and the squad an overall 22-14 success to keep them well on track for promotion.
West Midlands now went into their final game of the season 28 points adrift of leaders London, but seven ahead of third placed Suffolk and so a win at home to Devon would mean that promotion, although not a certainty was a very good bet indeed.
After two encouraging consecutive results from both of the ladies teams, this latest encounter was a dramatic bump back down to earth. The ‘B’ team went 2-0 down when Anette Lord and Marie Martin had respective wins over Jayne Stubbs and Gemma Poole and although Kim Fellows (15.99) reduced the arrears with her lady of the match 3-0 win over Moira Mortimer, they never really recovered from going two down.
Trisha Penberthy extended Devon’s lead to 3-1 when she accounted for Liz Arnold with a 3-1 result, Christine Harding, after trailing 1-0 to Jacqui Simmons, was another 3-1 winner and in the final tussle Susan Horne beat Heather Wright with yet another 3-1 verdict to give Devon a 5-1 success.
The ‘A’ side didn’t fare much better. Devon began with a straight 3-0 win from Michelle Andrews over Sarah Robbins, but the lead was short lived as Kath Jenkins went one up against Tracy Ware and despite then going behind 2-1 came back to win 3-2 and level the score.
Christine Kinnaird restored Devon’s advantage, a 3-2 win over Lisa Astbury and with a 3-1 win by Merryl Dennis against Tammy Chance the visitors were then 3-1 up with two to play. Long serving West Midlands player Diane Tolley made it 3-2 when she added her 3-0 win over Jane Wiltshire to the tally, her 16.16 average also earning her the ‘A’ teams match award.
So with the score at 3-2 to Devon there was everything to play for in the final game between Claire Hobbs (West Midlands) and Karen Atkinson. Unfortunately finishing doubles for Hobbs were at a premium and Atkinson stepped in to take the first three legs and give her team a 4-2 win.
The men’s ‘B’ began in style with two straight 3-0 wins from Paul Wright and Martin Angell at the expense of Trevor Perry and Paul Davis. They were followed by Neil Pointon and Richard Platt who each had 3-1 wins in their respective games against Terence Ashton and Graham Roberts. Trevor Carter moved the scoreline along to 5-0 with another three legs win against his opponent Paul Godbeer, Carter claiming the match award with a 26.37 average. Making it a clean sweep for the first half a dozen game was Ian Stanton who beat Jason Hill 3-1.
It turned out to be lucky seven for the Devon team as their number seven Chris Hunt registered their first win of the game. Hunt went one up against Peter Edmonds, who then reversed the advantage and took a 2-1 lead. Edmonds and Hunt then both failed to find their doubles, but it was the latter who finally came through to win the game 3-2. Danny Coyle chalked up the all important seventh winning leg when he beat Ian Knight 3-1. Then came Devon’s best run of the match they claimed their second winner of the day, this time it was Brian Hodge with a 3-1 result over Ian Hartland and he was followed by Liam Goyne who had a 3-2 win in his tie with Mark Watkiss.
West Midlands now had a lead of 7-3 with two to play. Viv Gould beat Flynn Jones 3-1 and taking the result to 10-2 was Paul Price who despite being pushed all the way by Darren Tilley won 3-2.
With four wins and two draws in their eight fixtures West Midlands ‘A’ team were leading their group and looking all set to win it, but sadly nothing is ever that clear cut.
After the first three games they appeared to be well on the way to the title as Andy Forrester (27.83), Ian Jones (30.68 Man of the Match) and Jamie Hughes (25.85) in turn took out Lee Watts, John Lakeman and Matthew Dickinson to open up a 3-0 lead. There was a setback in the fourth game when Andrew Steed beat Nicky Bache 3-1, but normal service was resumed when Chris Plumpton beat Peter Rice 3-1 and Dean Stewart won in straight legs against Roger Wright for a 5-1 lead.
This game was then completely turned on it’s head and it was certainly a game of two halves as the West Midlands from a strong 5-1 lead crashed to a 7-5 defeat. Richard Foster lost 3-0 to Andrew Taylor, Peter Wyse lost 3-1 to Richard Dennis, Mark Rollinson lost 3-0 to Mike Beal, Matt Dicken lost 3-1 to Ryan Searle, Avtar Singh lost 3-0 to Andrew Jackson and to complete the rout Lol Frazer went down 3-2 to Paul Milford.
The result meant that the ‘A’ side lost the men’s ‘A’ divisional title by just one point to Berkshire. However, Berkshire did do the Midlanders a good turn insomuch as they beat their nearest rivals Suffolk 22-17 to maintain their number two spot and finish as runners up on 187 points, London going up as champions on 224 points. Suffolk and Devon both ended the season on 180 points.
So it’s congratulations to the West Midlands players, officials and supporters on a very successful season and promotion to division one.