Home Countries

For the past thirty one years the Annual Home Countries Bowls Championships has been a highlight in the wheelchair bowls calendar. Last year’s event saw a three-way scramble for the title between England, Wales and Scotland with the Welsh the eventual winners, though it was close. Northern Ireland came fourth. There was a change in the playing format for 2009 - for the first time, this year’s Championships would be a Tri-Nations as the Northern Irish were unable to take part.

Teams are made up of at least six ‘para’ bowlers and two ‘tetra’ wheelchair bowlers. The former have good upper body strength and play from bowls wheelchairs whilst the latter have limited upper limb mobility and play with much smaller two and half inch woods – smaller yes, but the same game and arguably more skill required. Countries play each other in singles, pairs and triples over two days of intensive play: two points for win and one for a draw. The winners will have accumulated most points over the two days.

Scotland had strengthened their side from the last year with the addition of the experienced Jimmy Sellar who nowadays plays both curling and bowls. A few days prior to the Championships, Jimmy had had the good news that he was in the final stages of selection for the Scottish curling team. Wales had brought back an experienced player in Jim Munkley to partner Nigel Smith for their tetra matches. They also had Chris Gibson, the only player to play in all of the previous Home Countries Championships. England had made only a couple of changes and gave a debut to Tony Down from Bristol.

The first session of play on Day One saw the Scots make a clean sweep on all their four games whilst their rivals could only pick up one win each. However, the Scottish momentum was to prove short-lived as they picked up only one more win on Day One out of a further seven matches played, though to be fair, three of those defeats were by three shots or less. English performances improved as the day went on. Notably, England’s Alan Care picked up the first tetra points for his team in a singles against the Welsh. Wales steadied as Day One progressed winning ten points out of a possible fourteen in the afternoon.

At the end of Day One, England and Wales had 12 points and Scotland 10 but the English had played one match more than their competitors: all very close.

Wales started poorly on Day Two with just one win from four in contrast to the Scots who won three out of four to recover ground lost from the previous day. In the first session of the afternoon’s play, England scored more tetra points with a close win in the pairs against Wales but the Welsh picked up a couple of wins in their para games.

At the start of the final session of play on Day Two, remarkably the scores were as follows: all teams had played 18 matches and all teams had 18 points. This final session would determine the 2009 Home Countries Champions and all teams had four games each – so all to play for.

Two of the games saw early leads for the English against the Welsh, leads that would be maintained for two English wins. Also, in the tetra singles, Scotland’s Graham McClounnan had a good win over his Welsh opponent. These results meant that the likely winner would come from either the English or the Scots and their final session match-ups would be crucial. In the para pairs England’s Val Bradley& Paul Brown were up against James Smith & Scot’s Captain Arthur Black. Shots were shared early on so it was anyone’s match.

Meanwhile the other Anglo-Scots head-to-head was in the tetra singles with Scot Andy Divers playing the English substitute tetra bowler Ian Blackmore. Early joy for Scotland as Divers took an 11-0 lead. A win here coupled with a draw in the para pairs could be enough for them but England did not give up. Blackmore gained a shot here and a shot there, then some more and soon the deficit was whittled away. After much sweating of palms by both players, the score reached 17-17. (Nearby, the England-Scotland para pairs was still in the balance…everything hinged on the last few ends of these two games.) From 17-17 to 20-20 with Divers firing with his last wood. Had the jack gone dead it would have favoured the Scots but the jack refused to drop and just stayed in play for an unexpected win for the English and more tetra points which along with a win for Bradley & Brown in the closely fought para pairs saw a clean sweep for England in the crucial last session. The title of 2009 Home Countries Champions was England’s.

England captain, Lea Davis was presented with the Eamonn Gilmour Trophy by BWBA President, Terry Fitzgerald who also gave awards to Brenda Penny (Wales) for the Para Bowler of the Championship and to Alan Care (England) for the Tetra Bowler of the Championship. Next year’s event will be hosted by Wales.

England Wales Scotland

Send emails to Ian Blackmore

with questions or comments relating to this website.

Copyright 2007© British Wheelchair Bowls Association

Charity Number: 1057204