English Sports Bowling Tour - Stop 1 - Stroud
The English Sports Bowling Tour Returns for 2024. last year saw a number of highlights. Record attendance figures, Surprise debutant seasons and double digit totals.
For 2024 the English Sports Bowling Tour would see a slight reshape with there being two divisions instead of the one. the introduction of a women’s division means scores will now be separated into their own divisions so no ladies bonus of 8 pins a game and a all round fairer tournament for all making the ESBT more accessible and appealing for 2024. to see the full break down on how the tour rule and layout are enforced please visit sportbowling.uk
2024 saw the tour restart at Stroud Bowl, Stroud (Map Below). 72 Men and 25 women competing over the two days. viewers and bowling fans where set to see bowlers such as Masters Champion for 2023 Ray Teece, European youth championship 2023 masters bronze medallist Daniel Harding and multiple European champions and home centre favourite Hadley Morgan all on display.
The Tournament would be played over the weekend of 3rd and 4th of February 2024 with two squads on the Saturday, 3rd February. 10:00 and 15:30 Squads. Sunday, 4th February will also have two squads with timings being 08:45 and 14:15.
Saturday, Squad A (10am) we would see a wealth of bowler in this one featuring ex PBA Bowler Paul Moor, Team England Senior European and World Championship squad member Colin Grose along with Team England women’s player Vicki Harman.
Jason Agate would come out as Squad 1 Leader in the men section with Louise Gray topping the women’s division. Jason Bowled a total of 1755 (155 over) however his score didn’t reflex his performance on the lanes. Jason would go on to average 219.38 all while having a 182 and 180 in games 2 and 4 during his eight game block. Louise Gray would finish squad A as high women with a total score of 1556 (44 under). Other noticeable performances in this squad where Senior Bowler Colin Grose who shot 1725 (125 over). he would go on to finish top senior for the tour stop. Jon Parker came out of the blocks flying setting a bench mark of 155 over for the first three games which included a 298 game in his second game (video highlight below). However when the transition came into play Jon started to struggle slightly with only two of his final 5 games over par, proving that it really is a marathon not a sprint.
Jon Parker 300 attempt.
Saturdays second squad (Squad B, 15:30) featured another wealth of UK bowlers with the most noticeable bowlers being your Senior World Champions Diane and Kim Johnson, Ian Hollands, Alan Meades and Paul Loberman returning to UK tournament bowling for the first time after a very successful World Championships in Columbia back in December of last year. High male in this squad was the Silver fox himself Steve Thornton with a total of 1678 (78 over). High person in the female division in this squad was Avan Rhodes with a total of 1553 (47 under).
There was a moment that couldn’t go undocumented in this squad with Kieron Patel leaving the lily on his return to lanes 5-6 in game 8 of his block. video of the incident can be found below.
Onto Sunday now and the return of some of last years big hitters with multiple masters qualifiers from the tour of 2023 bowling the Sunday over the Saturday. here we would see Gavin Greeves dominate the field in this squad shooting a massive 1835, finishing his set off with a massive 278 thus all adding up to a 80 pin lead ahead of Jason Agate who until this point was top of the tree.
Rachel Cox would go on to replace Louise Gray at the top of the women’s division but it wouldn’t be all plain sailing for Rachel who got out of the blocks slow, putting herself 64 under for her first two however two 248 games in game 3 and game 5 put her right back on target to finish on top spot.
We had another moment that couldn’t go undocumented in Squad C this time a missed 5 pin from Chris Hutt on lane 3. video footage can be found below.
Chris Hutt misses the 5 pin
Onto the final squad of this tour stop at Stroud Bowl. the final squad would host newly crowned dad Mark Patrick, Double youth European bronze medallist Dan Harding and Multiple medallist at Decembers world senior championships in Columbia Geoff Brown. Mark Patrick and Dan Harding where very much up for this one with both mounting a charge onto that top spot score of 1835 from Gavin Greeves. Both looked favourites to leap frog Gavin going into the last with Dan needing a 225 and Mark just needing to go over by 6 pins (206) however lanes 1 and 2 seems to prove difficult for mark who could only manage a 180 game in the last finishing on 1810, 210 over but just 25 pins behind Gavin on top spot. Dan on the other hand had a relatively decent last game with a 211 however if Dan had strook out in the 10th frame of his final game he would of claimed the title for stop one - Stroud.
In the women’s division it went down to the wire also with Hampshire’s Hayley Russell threatening to take top spot off Rachel Cox going into the final two games. Needing just 384 from her final two games it was just a matter of keeping the game clean with the odd strike along the way. However lanes 3 and 4 and lanes 1 and 2 had other ideas and decided to put a stop the the Russell party. With only 348 scored in her final two games 36 pins short of the target of 384 2nd was all Hayley could achieve.
The highlight of Squad D was Dan Harding going front 10 in game 5. Watch his tenth frame below.
Riding the ditch would like to congratulate Rachel Cox and Gavin Greave on the Tour Stop win at Stroud. we would also like to thank Lee Chatfield and his ESBT team for yet another excellently ran tournament. Riding the Ditch would also like to extend a thank you to Stroud Bowl who where fantastic host as always and never disappoint to put the bowlers first and on a personal point they really do help with setting up streams and accommodating our team while at the bowl. We can not thank them enough!
ESBT Top 20 for both the men’s and women’s sections. to see the full results please click on the image above and follow the link or Alternative click here