© Gary Bradley 2005- all rights reserved, all trademarks hereby acknowledged |
This page is sponsored by |
The Annual Friendly between Gourock Park and Stonehouse Bowling Clubs took place on Saturday 7th May at Gourock Park. President Gary Bradley welcomed President Andrew Clark and his fellow Members from Stonehouse to the Club for an afternoon of great bowling and friendship. Play got underway just after 2pm and came to a sudden halt again, even before the first bowl was rolled up the green, due to a sudden downpour. Players then made a hasty retreat back to the safety of the Clubhouse to have ''just another wee beer". The weather improved and allowed play to get underway in brilliant sunshine, although several sudden rainclouds made sure that the players had more than enough time to 'hit the bar' during the afternoon's play. At close of play, the members from both clubs retired to the Clubhouse to be served up a fantastic 3 course meal by the wonderful Gourock Park Ladies. The Homemade soup especially was going down a treat!. In the after match speeches, President Bradley, remarked on the origins of how this great game was started, he mentioned that it was down to a Banker from Stonehouse, who was re-located to Gourock just after the Second World War and chose 'The Park' over another Gourock Club. This was greeted by cheers by both sets of members. Gary then proposed a toast to 'The Stonehouse Banker' In reply, Stonehouse President, Andrew Clark, also spoke about the Friendly and promised that the exact origins of this game would be looked into, he thanked President Bradley for the hospitality and also thanked the fantastic work by the over worked Bar Staff and praised the Ladies for a splendid job in preparing such a lovely meal It was then time for the scores and it was announced that Gourock Park had won by 108 shots to 77!. This was later discovered to be not the case during the handing out of the day's highest up prizes. One of the Scorecards was marked incorrectly, meaning that match secretary, Ian Brown had thought a Gourock Park Rink won a game by 21 shots to 9, when in fact it was the other way around!!. However overall Gourock Park still had enough shots on the day to claim a victory over Stonehouse by 95 shots to 90 shots. Highest up for Stonehouse was a Rink skipped by Jim Robertson along with B M Auley, I Cochrane and B Struthers, who claimed a 22 v 9 victory over John Hagen's rink of John Ellis, Eddie Mc Neil and Mark Wells. Next highest for Stonehouse were I Hinselwood, D Mc Kinlay, I Ewing and H Smith who finished 7 shots better of than Gourock Park's Russell Clark, S Whyte, Willie Burnie and Ian 'Bruno' Brown. Highest up for Gourock Park and winners of the legendary Stonehouse Steak Pies were, Ramsay Crawford, John Mc Fetrich, John White and Jim Crawford who finished a whopping twenty shots up. Next highest was Dan Kelly, Robert Cameron, Gary Bradley and Terry Duffy who helped the President's Rink claim victory over Stonehouse President, Andrew Clarkes rink of Dan Hannay, Bill Taggart and Alex Anderson. The day was as always a fantastic day and it was closed in the usual fashion with a good old sing song, which in itself has become another battle to claim victory over the opponents. President Bradley got things underway with his rendition of 'King of the Road' which he claimed was his first and last attempt at singing at a Stonehouse game. He was then followed by an array of 'stars' from both clubs. Gourock Park's 'usual star performer, Kenny Mc Kinlay, was unfortunatley unable to attend and partly due to this, I would have to say that victory in the singing stakes went to the Men from Stonehouse. For the first time ever, I have managed to get some of the singers on video and have uploaded them onto the site for your pleasure. To view them you must have 'Real Player' which can be downloaded free of charge from many download sites. |
Pictures from the day |
Presidents Clark and Bradley |
