Alan Landers battles back to win Champion of Champions trophy at Robin Hood’s Bay

This was preceded by a “Tea & Biscuits” singles competition for bowlers who had not qualified for the main competition.

Bowlers currently qualify for the Champion of Champions by reaching the quarter finals, or better, in the Sunday singles merits and the Boyes and Hospital Cups, 1 point being awarded to the quarter finalists, 2 to the semi-finalists, 4 to the runners-up and 6 to the winners.

The points are added thorough the season and the top sixteen players, plus any who are equal on points with the sixteenth, are eligible to play in the Champion of Champions.

The top four players in the standings are seeded so that they cannot meet before the semi-finals.

In spite of the less than favourable weather in the morning 28 bowlers entered the Tea & Biscuits which potentially made for difficult timing with the main competition due to start at 11am.

Fortunately the green, although in very good condition, was quite slow which meant that games tended to finish in good time, paradoxical as this may sound.

There were some longer games though. In the top half of the draw Kevin Garside (Eastfield) drew Sue Emmerson (Whitby) and won 21-19, having been down 19-15.

Garside then had another 21-19 win over Denise Dobson (Dukes Park) with an amazing comeback from 18-7 down and then 19-9 down. He then had another close win, 21-20 this time, against Dave Moment (North Cliff) in a game where both players had the edge at different points with Garside just getting the final points to win.

This was followed by a convincing (21-9) semi-final win over Robin Hood’s Bay’s Andy Braid.

In the other half of the draw Tim Purcell (Whitby) had single figure wins over Kathryn Brown (Robin Hoods Bay) and Whitby clubmate Kenny Rodgers.