Bowls round-up

OLVESTON and District Bowling Club hosted the second leg of the Friendly Shield against Bradley Stoke Bowling Club who went into the match leading from the first leg.

The game was sponsored by Specsavers Thornbury who added an additional bit of spice with bottles of wine up for grabs for the highest scoring rink.

“This is a long standing game we play against Bradley Stoke every year,” said Geoff Cook, Olveston captain for the day.

“Although we are playing for the Friendly Shield, it’s far from friendly when you see the effort both sides put in, pride is a very strong driver.”

Bradley Stoke came out overall winners over the two legs and also picked up the wine by the highest scoring rink of Peter Sparling, Pauline Dent, Robert Bertram and Val Griffiths.

Bradley Stoke captain Brian Newman was delighted with the result.

“It’s great to be the overall winners for the second year in succession,” said Newman.

Meanwhile, it was not all joy for Olveston’s John Smallwood in the Two Wood final of the Men’s County Finals day.

He was playing Steve Knight, from Cheltenham.

Smallwood had got off the mark well and was 8-6 up on his opponent in the showdown.

But the Olveston ace found Knight fighting back as the final continued.

The Cheltenham man hit an amazing purple patch that saw him win six consecutive ends.

That saw him go from two down at 8-6 down to six shots up on Smallwood at 14-8.

That was too much for the Olveston man to recover and he went down 14-11 at the end.