2010
The first International Open was held at Kempston, Bedfordshire which saw some of the best players from England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Sweden and Belgium playing for big cash prizes. The only representatives from Norfolk were Wymondham's Steve and Debbie Phillips and Chris Mann in the triples and also David Lamb (Halvergate) in the fours. A great weekend was had by all players, in the fours the Wymondham and Halvergate block reached the semi-final's after dumping out L. Moffat's Scottish and Irish mixed rink in the quarter final's and before that they also had the scalps of Essex's premier team block consisting of Peter and Anthony Faulty, Tony Orpin and Steve Killington. The Norfolk four eventually lost out to Ireland's C. McHugh's rink who were in formidable form and saw them win the event. In the group stages a great start was made beating Sweden's rink and then also a very strong Staffordshire four consisiting of Darren Beardmore and Nick Tideswell. The last match saw stubborn opponents West Mids clinching victory who won all three games in the group.
The next day in the triples Steve, Deb and Chris made it to the quarter finals of the triple's event. In the groups they beat a Swedish team, an Essex triple and a Welsh International block. In the last 32 they played another Welsh international triple skipped by Andrew Hudson. After a tight six ends the score was tied at 3-3. After that the Wymondham triple took the advantage and won 10-5. A thrilling match in the quarter final's saw them drawn against Grant Soller's strong Cheshire block. With the match going all the way Mann had a chance to the win the match on the last end with them holding two and needing three to clinch it but missed out. On the extra end Cheshire had two woods in the ditch but with Jack still live Debbie came down to try and take it in with her bowl but just caught it wrong and ended up next to Cheshire's wood who were very relieved with the win after a match that had everything.
It was a great weekends bowling taking scalps of many International bolwers and hopefully there will be many more tournaments to come like this.
