The Barrington Cup and Bucketts Shield annual tournament went ahead with a few new rules and regulations this year.
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The most significant rule was that it was an open tournament and so there were numerous entries of grade 1 and State representatives when the event was held by the Gloucester men’s bowls on Saturday, September 16 and Sunday, September 17.
Gloucester Bowls Club club champions represented, along with a couple of teams picked from our top grade 4 teams and several from grade 6.
A total of 104 players in 26 teams of four took part in this year’s shield carnival and the weather stayed perfect throughout the two days.
Saturday was qualifying day as all teams played three matches of 15 ends to finish with enough wins and highest margins to get into the Barrington Cup to be played on the synthetic northern green or if you were in the lowest 12 teams, into the Bucketts Shield to be played on the southern grass green. The grass green had been resurrected after being left to seed after the synthetic green came into play and to get it to this state was a near herculean task by several of the GBC staff and players.
It played very slow and difficult but it was the same for all teams and the eventual winners of the carnival played two of their three Saturday matches on the grass so it was merely a case of applying yourself as best you can.
On Sunday the two separate groups went back to scratch as far as wins and losses were concerned with no carry-over points which is different to past carnivals where Saturday’s wins and margins were carried into Sunday’s matches.
The Bucketts Shield had prizes for first, second and third placed teams and winning the shield with three Sunday wins was the team entered by Cliff Atkins from the Tuncurry Beach club.
In second place was a composite team entered by Jason Cassidy, formerly with Old Bar club but now a Gloucester boy.
In third place was the team entered by Klaus Mirisch who has played in most of these carnivals over many years. Congratulations to all these teams and to the other nine teams who did not win a prize but had a fun two days of mateship and competition.
The Barrington Cup carried big prize money and was hotly contested by all 14 teams involved. Only one side had three wins on Sunday and therefore won the cup.
The team was entered by Ronnie Carter and was a composite side from out of the district. In second was a side from Black Head club entered by D Richardson (Richo) who had two wins on Sunday and took second on a superior winning margin.
In third was a composite team skipped by Martin Gosper and the best Gloucester team were in fourth position and that was entered by Kevin Everett and contained Mike Sheely, Col Atkins and Peter Sansom. A particularly good effort as other than Kevin who was graded in division 4 the other three players were all players in our 6th grade teams.
All in all it was great to see so many players back on two greens and enjoying the friendship and competition of fellow players and on Sunday morning the traditional barbecue breakfast was very social and enjoyable.
Many thanks to the organisers and workers behind the scenes who assisted in putting on the event. The Betta Electrical raffle prize of $600 of electrical products was drawn at the presentation tea and won by seven year-old Felix Toengi-Andrews, grandson of John Andrews.