Snow almost stops play

Of course we all know that the South of England has a great climate and it never snows very often, but when it does, it stops everything. Well, it nearly stopped the English Championships in its tracks this weekend and, but for a fortunate bit of programming, I think we would still be waiting to hear who had won this year’s English Men’s Championship.

The curling rink at Fenton’s sits on the border of Kent and East Sussex and, like many boundaries, this runs along a rivercourse. And of course rivercourses all lie at the bottom of valleys, which is where the problems occur because to get out of valleys you generally have to climb hills, which is why during Saturday evening’s session at the Championship worried spectators were periodically peering out of windows to see if the snow that was forecast had arrived.

Indeed it had started to fall as it was time to leave and the convoy of cars that wound up the lane to the A21 left distinct tracks on the flurry of snow that presaged the storm to come. By the early morning three to four inches had fallen and there was a curling session due at 0900 to settle the Championships, with a possible tie break at 1400.

Except there wasn’t, because the Championship had been won the previous evening just as the snow began to fall and, instead of a ski ride down the lane to the rink, a relieved group of curlers could begin to contemplate driving home.

And the piece of good fortune was that the draw for the seven team competition, which gave each team a bye in one of the sessions, had given the bye on the Sunday morning to the team which won all of its 6 games and so could not be caught. So it was a case of game over, shut up shop and let’s hope it clears up for Tuesday evening’s league games.

So who were the winners? Well the teams entered were the reigning champions, skipped by Alan MacDougall; the previous championship winning rinks of Jamie Malton and James Dixon / Bruce Bowyer; the English junior men’s team of Ben Fowler (with some overage help from brother Sam); John Brown’s team of Canadian English (see Bob’s Haggis report) skipped by Greg Dunn; Ken Maxwell’s team skipped by another Canadian, Bryan Zachary and a final multi-national team skipped by another Canadian, Doug Andrews, with Duncan Spence (ex-Lockerbie) throwing last stones (most of the time)! Probably the most cosmopolitan English Championships of all time.

For the first time at the National Championships the procedure followed the WCF rulebook with a pre-game practice and Last Stone Draw to decide the hammer and then at the end of the competition the use of the average LSD to decide ranking if unobtainable by the results in the round robin between the equal teams. Only one tie breaker was programmed and so any decision on who should be in a final tiebreaker could depend on the LSD results.

Thursday night and it was wins for Alan MacDougall (v Greg Dunn by 10-6), Doug Andrews (v Ben Fowler by 8-4) and for Jamie Malton (v Ken Maxwell by 10-7). Nothing unusual there but in the next session at 0930 on Friday morning it seemed as though Doug Andrews had caught Jamie Malton napping as it took an extra end to decide the game 11-10 in Malton’s favour. MacDougall beat Maxwell 8-3 and Dunn beat Dixon by 8-5.

Just an hour or so after the end of the session, for those playing slowly and long, it was back on and Sheet 1 threw up another extra end finish. After just three ends, James Dixon was 5-0 up on Alan MacDougall and a shock looked likely, but a thrilling comeback eventually saw MacDougall win 8-7 in the extra while Greg Dunn shocked Jamie Malton by winning 8-5 and an outrageous fluke helped Ben Fowler defeat Ken Maxwell 8-3.

An early finish on Friday but it was a full day on Saturday with, for some teams, three games to played between 0900 and 2200. The first session saw the game considered by many to be the most crucial one of the weekend, that between MacDougall and Malton, and the latter needed to win after losing to Dunn on the Friday. Jamie’s wife was expected to deliver their first child over the weekend and so he had to dash off to the hospital that morning leaving Michael Opel to skip the team. And what a game it was, finally decide by a great draw to catch the edge of the four foot by Alan for a 6-5 win.

So with four wins out of four it looked like the reigning champions would retain their title and only Greg Dunn could realistically hope to catch them if they slipped. He had recorded a 14-5 win over Ben Fowler while James Dixon won his first game by 8-6 over Doug Andrews.

Greg Dunn had the bye in the middle of Saturday and while he and his team were off enjoying a long lunch, a session which featured probably the least excitement of the day saw MacDougall beat Fowler 8-1, Maxwell win his first game by 14-5 over Andrews (though Ken Maxwell did not play in this game) and Malton got back on track with an 8-5 win over Dixon.

And so to the last session on Saturday, and with snow threatening to cut them off from their accommodation, James Dixon and his team forfeited their game against Ben Fowler as neither could win the title, leaving just Alan MacDougall and Greg Dunn to record further wins, and, by dint of winning six out of six, that was enough for Alan MacDougall, Andrew Reed, Andrew Woolston and Tom Jaegii to win their third consecutive championship (and they have a win - loss record of 18-1 over those three years).

A quick drink and presentations and it was off into the wintry scenes and the convoy to safety………..

And what about the women’s Championship? It is next weekend and features just two teams – skipped by Fiona Hawker and Anna Fowler. There will be one game on Friday with two on Saturday and two if needed on Sunday. Look out for a follow up report next week.

Top L-R: Alan MacDougall, Andrew Reed, Andrew Woolston and Tom Jaegii. Photo courtesy of Kerr Alexander.