ROCKWELL Green Short Mat Bowling Club held their annual singles competition for the Cecil Lane Cup recently with 12 members taking part.

With a 10am start, a round-robin was played with each player playing three 10-end games in a timed period which resulted in some very tight games.

Lunch was taken at 1pm with six more games to play, but the four semi-finalists were John Young (three wins from three), Graham Hill (3/3), Cass Russell (W2, D1) and Mike Russell (W2 L1) who went through via a higher shot aggregate than Reg Deem who had the same record.

The first semi-final between Mike and Graham was a tightly-contested affair until the last end when Mike scored a three to give him an 11-9 victory. The second semi-final between Cass and John proved to be a little one-sided affair as Cass could not find her best form while John played excellently to gain a comfortable success.

A short break followed to give the finalists time to draw breath, and when they returned they produced a tight affair until the fifth end when John started to pull away.

Mike tried to fight back, but John dug deep and kept his cool to stay ahead and finished with a 10-5 victory, thus taking the title of Singles champion and holder of the Cecil Lane Cup for 2026.

The club is indebted to all the members who took part: Mike Bull, Bob Picken (aged 94), Dennis Gubb, Graham Hill, Joy Picken, Cass Russell, John Stevens (chairman), Mike Russell (event organiser), Bill Kingdom (club captain), Reg Deem, Cedric Snowden (longest serving member of the club) and John Young.

It is to be noted that the two finalists played 200 woods over the course of the day, while thanks were expressed to those who kept the refreshments on the go all day.