Weekend Success for Solihull Members!

Sunday 18th January saw our Solihull side travel north to Scunthorpe IBC to face South Shields Vipers in the Quarter Final of the National Top Club event.

A 12 noon start meant the players had plenty of time to travel up and get ready for the match with Ryan Prosser up first in the Men's 2 bowl singles. After a slow start Ryan was 5-2 down after 7 ends with players trading 1 shot an end. This all changed on the 9th end with Ryan collecting 2 shots in a run of 11 consecutive winning ends to take the game away from his opponent (leading 18-5). There was a brief fight back as from 20-7 up the South Shields player got back to 20-12 but Ryan took the win on the next end to take the first points and put Solihull in front.

In the Ladies Singles Izzie White started strongly going 5-0 up. Her consitent play meant that her opponent could not get a foot hold in the match, Izzie leading 13-2 and 16-3 before she was put under any pressure. At 16-7 Izzie had lost 3 consecutive ends in a row, but that mattered little as she powered to a winning score of 21-8. Izzie secured the second match win in style which gave the other events a little breathing room. Well done to both Izzie and Ryan of their wins.

In the mixed pairs Hannah Smith and Tom Holmes (fresh from his first round win at Potters on Saturday) faced J Tallack and David Bolt (Having also played at Potters during the week). A nip and tuck start with South Shields picking up a 2 and a single on the first 2 ends, then Solihull responded with a 4! Their opponents had the better of the next few ends to go into the 8th end 5-11 up. The remining ends were almost shared with Solihull winning 5 ends to their opponents 4 to see the score at 13-17 with 2 ends to play. Hannah and Tom dug deep and played some fantastic bowls throughout the match, but they could only score a 2 and a 1 to lose the match 16-17. A fantastic effort by both of them, and one that meant the points were now level at 4-4, but with Solihull holding that 21 shot advantage built in the singles.

The mixed triples saw Joy Powell, Mark Burdett and Ben Harris (who had also represented the club at Potters last week) face Paul Hartleys triple (Paul had played in both the pairs and the singles at Potters). A second end 5 helped our team to a strong start leading 7-4 at 4 ends, but their opponents started to take control from this point. Playing the 7th end the score was now 7-6 but Solihull found themselves 6 down on the head! Skip Ben managed to get the shot, but could not save the next couple of ends dropping a 3, 2 and a 1. Ends 11 and 12 were won by our team with a 1 and 2 or their own to go into the 13th End 11-12 behind. Unfortunatley they would not win another end, eventually losing 11-18. A good effort by the team, but Solihull were now 8-4 behind on points but 14 shots up overall.

No need to panic though as our fours team of Liz Wooding, Lily Adams, Callum Mitchell and Alex Lewis were never behind against the South Shields team skipped by Josh Minto. 5-0 up and 8-3 up at 5 ends was a confident start by our players, each of them playing excellent bowls and restricting their opponents to only 1's and 2's. 16-6 up at 10 ends and 19-9 up at 14 ends the game was over. Eventually winning 21-11 with an end to spare.

Massive congratulations to all players in the squad! The team will face Norfolk in the National Semi Final at Nottingham IBC on Saturday 28th March 2026 @ 7pm.

Warwick Trophy

While our team was winning in Scunthorpe the club had another match taking place across the city at Birmingham IBC. In the local derby bragging rights would be ours as our players put in a fantastic performance winning on both rinks against a previously undefeated side.

City of Birmingham were top of the Warwick Trophy table having won all of their previous 3 matches, and would have been confident of another win at their home club, however our teams really played well to come away with all 7 points on offer.

The star performance came from the rink of John Bentien (captain), George Morrison, Martin Jamieson and Andrew Powell, losing only 4 ends of the 18 played, and each one of them a single. A 6, two 5's and two 4's secured a winning score of 35-4 for our team, a fantastic performance.

The other rink of Ivor Amos, George Donaldson, Steve Tate and Colin Stobbs had a much tougher battle. 1-7 down at 4 ends and 4-12 down at 8 ends meant they would have to come from behind to win this match. With 4 ends to play our team were still 9-16 adrift, but scores of 3, 1 and 5 saw them head into the last end 2 up! They managed to restrict their opponents to 1 shot on the last end to take the 2 points and return a winning score of 18-17.

This result may have opened the league table up for the remaining matches, league table below.

League Table
	P	W	D	L	F	A	Diff	Points
Rugby	4	3	0	1	153	141	12.00	19
Birmingham	4	3	0	1	139	127	12.00	17
Solihull	3	2	0	1	119	91	28.00	14
Welford	4	2	0	2	140	140	0.00	12
Avon Valley	3	0	0	3	98	114	-16.00	6
Tamworth	2	0	0	2	49	92	-43.00	2