Report on the Inter-Counties Finals Day at Macduff (and Banff)

As President of the Scottish Young Bowler’s Association, Alan Mitchell of Macduff Bowling Club is given the honour of hosting the Finals Day of the SYBA’s National Competition known as the “Andy Houston” Trophy, named after the first President of the Association.

The Competition is run on a regional basis to find the four qualifiers for the Finals Day.

Following the “round robin" qualifiers the four successful Districts were:

North Area – Fife
East Area – Midlothian
West Area – Central East
South Area – Wigtonshire

Each team consists of sixteen Under-16 bowlers plus two reserves (both boys and girls) and each District came to Macduff along with their Officials and their spectators.

Fife, Midlothian and Central East travelled to Macduff on the day of the competition, however due to the long distance involved Wigtownshire put on a 50 seater bus and travelled on the Friday.

Wigtownshire stayed at a local hotel (The Highland Haven) in Macduff overnight.

On Saturday morning the four teams along with their “loyal” supporters arrived at Macduff Bowling Club and also at local neighbours Banff Bowling Club, whose green was also to be used.

After refreshments, the Semi Finals took place with Wigtownshire playing Midlothian at Macduff and the other Semi Final between Fife and Central East taking place at the same time on the Banff green.

Each game consisted of 15 ends after a trial with there being 10 points to be won - 2 points for each of the 4 individual rinks and 2pts for the overall score.

After two very exciting games with the youngsters showing a high level of skill in their sport the winners were Wigtownshire and Central East both winning 8pts to 2pts.

All the players, officials and spectators then had a meal within Macduff Bowling Club and a speech was made by President Alan Mitchell congratulating all the players for winning through to the Finals Day, and in particular to both Wigtownshire and Central East who were to battle it out to be the National Champions.

A presentation was made by the SYBA officials to Macduff Bowling Club of an engraved Rose bowl to commemorate the Club’s Centenary year and to mark the Finals being held there that day.

The losing Semi Finalists returned to Banff to playoff for 3^rd and 4^th places, with Fife eventually taking 3^rd spot.

The Final took place at the SYBA President’s home green, Macduff and an excellent game took place with a superb standard of bowling being displayed, well worthy of a final of a National Competition.

After 10 ends the score stood at 43 – 43, but with the points system being used Central East were leading Wigtownshire by 7pts to 3pts.

Over the last 5 ends the Central East team proved to be the stronger and pushed their score to a final total of 72, whilst Wigtownshire could manage only a further 7 shots to finish on 50.

The final result was Central East (72) 8 points to Wigtownshire (50) 2 points.

The presentation was made to the jubilant winners and the gallant runners up by President Alan Mitchell, who asked the SYBA Secretary Anne Bremner to hand over their mementos and also the “Andy Houston”  Trophy to the Captain of the Central East team.

Photographs were taken in front of Macduff’s Centenary Score Board of the winners, Central East to be posted onto the SYBA website.

The teams along with their spectators then departed on their long journeys south, after a highly successful Finals Day for the Scottish Young Bowlers Association.

Before departing SYBA Vice President, Jim Kelly of Wigtownshire, congratulated Macduff (and Banff) for hosting the final stages of such a successful competition and looked forward to being able to put on as good a show next year when the finals of the “Andy Houston” Trophy would take place in his area at Stranraer Bowling Club.