Browns Bay Double by Lindsay Knight
Led by its Black Jack international Tony Grantham, Browns Bay secured a notable double in the North Harbour champion of champion pairs events decided at Orewa at the weekend.
Partnered by lead Ross Kelly, Grantham gained his fifth centre title for the season, and the 16th of his career, with a hard fought 17-15 win in the final over two strong Takapuna bowlers, Murray Mathieson and John Janssen.
This followed the success of two other Browns Bay bowlers, Elaine McClintock and Kerin Roberts, both of whom are already gold star holders, in the women’s final over Sunnybrae’s Jan Jones and Keryl Blackburn.
McClintock and Roberts won 17-8, with the match shaping as another tight contest, only for the Sunnybrae pair to drop a six at about the two-thirds stage.
For Kelly his win with Grantham might have been unexpected, as he probably comes into the recreational bowler category and has never featured much at centre level. But he is a good draw bowler and a loyal servant of the Browns Bay club as one of its board members.
The loss for Mathieson and Janssen furthered a frustrating run each has had in centre finals. Though he does have three centre titles, plus a Trusts New Zealand Open triples success, Mathieson has been runner-up now in seven of the centre finals in which he has been involved. He has also lost count of number of semi-finals in which he has been beaten. Janssen has also been there or thereabouts in centre events, including making the championship singles semi-finals earlier this season, but his only centre success, apart from three junior titles, has been in the championship pairs in the 1996-97 season.
Glenfield’s Tee Ford and Caroline Dubois won the centre one-to-five pairs championship with an 18-10 win in the final over Loz Croot and Judi Farkash (Birkenhead).
Dubois is only a second year player but her potential has been already noted and in April she represented Tonga at the Commonwealth Games.
A Glenfield-Hobsonville composite of David Payne and Murray West won the men’s one-to-five pairs title, winning a tight final in near darkness 13-12 from Takapuna’s Bob Telfer and Gordon Jenkins.