The Club is now a smoke free zone

As part of the Royals commitment to improving the standard of member’s bowling skills and as a consequence, enhancing their enjoyment of the game, the first of many Skills sessions took place last weekend. The afternoon, organised by Neville Bedford and attended by 24 bowlers, took place across all 6 rinks and consisted of a mini match followed by a test of overall bowling skills, assessed by the bowlers taking part in six different disciplines.  It was felt that those taking part were somewhat shocked by the discovery of quite how difficult these basic tasks were, and it was clear that some honing of the fundamentals of the game should be placed high on the agenda of all taking part.  For the record, the overall winner on a most enjoyable and successful day was club Chairman, Sue McClintock, who put her expertise on the line at the National bowls finals in Nottingham recently.  Competing in the Champion of Champions singles event, Sue’s first opponent was Sharon Hall from the Desborough, Northampton club.  After an extremely hard fought contest during which she bowled with great application, the Kent bowler had to give best to Hall who progressed to the semi finals.

Royals’ ladies completed their Kent League programme with first a visit to Gillingham’s Prince Arthur club and, finally, a home fixture against Tonbridge Angel.  The six rinks that made the trip to Prince Arthur had a very productive day, winning on aggregate 126 shots to 101 and on three rinks, skipped by Sylvia Lacey, Sue McClintock and Helen Waters.  Local rivals Angel would bring 6 rinks to Hawkenbury looking for sufficient shots to make up the deficit from the season’s previous games between the two clubs, which would decide the destiny of the annual trophy. Although Angel took the match by 117 to 108 shots, this was not enough to cancel the shortfall, and the trophy goes to High Woods Lane on total shots 478 to 453.

The Royals men had just one match to complete their league programme when they travelled to the East coast of the county to take on Betteshanger IBC at their cosy, little four rink venue. The home club can boast a clutch of England and Kent bowlers amongst their membership and as a consequence, the standard of bowling is remarkably high. In order to move above Sevenoaks in the table, Royals would need a very good result, needed also to stay above both today’s opponents and Bromley.  Things were not looking too promising at the halfway mark with Royals in arrears, but after the break, the visitors settled into a productive rhythm and all rinks closed to the hosts and levelled the score.  With 3 ends to play, an unexpected Royals victory was on the cards, but then 2 ends went against them and Betteshanger were able to hang on to a 4 shot win and 7 points.  Royals 3 points however, enabled them to finish 6^th in the league just shy of the Oaks.  Roger Wilmshurst skipped a winning rink and Dave Lucy’s drew.

The culmination of a season’s competitions is reached this weekend when, starting Friday, Royals Spa Aluminium sponsored finals take place.  As ever, a veritable feast of classical bowling is promised, rising to a climax late on Sunday afternoon when the blue riband events are played, followed by the presentation of trophies and prizes in the evening.