Historic bowls tournament rolling along

In fact, the clouds very quickly cleared and the greens at White Rock Gardens were bathed in sunshine on Monday morning. In keeping with tradition, the opening bowls were delivered by the Mayor of Hastings, Cllr Alan Roberts, and chief sponsor Mark Gardiner, of Croft Glass Ltd.

All 24 rinks were in use for the first round of the men’s pairs, and this was followed in the afternoon’s two sessions with men’s singles matches. There were no major upsets in the pairs, but the chairman and his partner did beat the treasurer and his partner.

The historic event has been running throughout the week and the finals are scheduled for tomorrow (Saturday).

* WHITE Rock duo Colin Nutton and Martin Heitzman reached the latter stages of the Bowls England Men’s Junior Singles Championship at Beach House Park, Worthing.

Nutton went all the way to the semi-finals where he was beaten 21-12 by eventual runner-up Liam Pearcey (Warwickshire). He previously knocked out competitors from Somerset, Surrey, Yorkshire and Northumberland.

Heitzman beat players from Gloucestershire, Leicestershire and Huntingdonshire before losing 21-11 to an opponent from Northamptonshire in the quarter-finals.

The White Rock team of Glen Newton, Trevor Roberts, Nick Wingfield and skip Shaun Godfrey lost 17-15 to Somerset in round one of the Bowls England Men’s National Fours Championship having pipped Hampshire 16-15 in the preliminary round.