Isle of Man County Crown Green Bowling Association

Ladies Open Age league: The final fixture of the 2025 Ladies Open Age league was played last Friday evening. With Marown A playing their outstanding match from fixture 17 the night before at home to Ballaugh A resulting in a 5-4 win for the Crosby ladies but losing on points (149-161), only a disastrous last fixture result by the Castletown A ladies would prevent them from becoming the league winners for the fifth consecutive time. With this in mind, Castletown A made their way to Douglas to play the Villa ladies. Despite a good home performance by Douglas, Castletown won 6-3 and by 16 points. Hilary Kermode for Town and Harley Garrett for Douglas won to single figures with Alison Kearsley and Chris Price both having to dig deep for Castletown to win to 18 and 20 against Katie Jacobs and Jane Lothian respectively. Having pulled the deficit back between them and Castletown A due to two good home results from their rearranged matches, Marown A played Breagle Glen A at home resulting in a solid 6-3 win for the Crosby ladies dropping only 11 points (178-122) with Rebekah Kelly, Lyn Bolton and Helen Withers helping with the points tally by winning to single figures. The three winners for Breagle were Caroline Whitehead, Katy Williams and Nicola Cain who won to 17, 18 and 17 against Philippa Taylor, Lynda Cadamy and Jayne Smith. Unfortunately for Marown this wasn’t enough to stop Castletown from taking the league title. 

South Ramsey played Ballaugh A at home, result of which would decide third and fourth league places. Unfortunately for Ballaugh, the South ladies were on good form winning the match 6-3 dropping only 14 points (175-133) with Judy Kelly for South being the only player to win her game to single figures. Three winners for Ballaugh were Barbara Graham who won to 10 against Gillian Jopson; Lola Tebay who won to 19 after a nip and tuck game with Lauren Groen and Elena Dimsdale who after a hard fought battle with Sue Collier won 21-20.

Mooragh Park made their way south coming away with a solid 7-2 win, dropping only 14 points (175-119) against Castletown B. Janet Monk and Shannon McMullan both won their games to single figures for the Mooragh ladies with the closest game seeing a 21-17 win for Madison McMullan against Town’s Barbara Young. Two winners for Castletown were Marie Ashurst and Susan Kerruish who both won to 14 against Grayse Blencoe and Katie Johnson. 

Breagle Glen B hosted Marown B winning the match 5-4 and by only one point (145-144). Angie Bennett and Molly Howland for Breagle, plus Lil Smith and Rosie Winckle for Marown all won to single figures with Claire Cain winning 21-18 after a hard fought game with Crosby’s Lillie Barrett. Ballaugh B took on Nobles at home losing the match 2-7 (129-173) with Lisa Bradshaw and Colese Creer for Nobles and Charlotte Neeson for Ballaugh all winning to single figures. The other winner for Ballaugh was Gail Curphey who won to 17 against Tina Hampson. Libby Andrade and Marilyn Ellison both won 21-16 after nip and tuck games against Ali Quaggan and Yvonne Ward.

With the above results and an exciting and interesting end to the season, top places are – in first place Castletown A on 4,238 points; second Marown A on 4,148; third South Ramsey on 3,975 and fourth place Ballaugh A 3,941 – very close indeed! Many congratulations to the Castletown A ladies on their well deserved title and to all the teams this year for an exciting and interesting season of  bowls. Here’s hoping next year will be just as good!

Merit Table: Like the league table the merit was extremely well contested throughout the season and one of the closest in many a year. Overall winner is Janet Monk (Mooragh Park) on 495 points; second Jenny Moore (South Ramsey) on 491; third and fourth places were team mates Hannah Drewett and Tracy Moore (Castletown) who both finished on 490 just one point behind Jenny, but as Hannah has a better total against point score, she finishes in third place and Tracy fourth. Fifth and sixth places also saw Castletown team mates Hilary Kermode and Stella Watterson both finish on 486 points, but as above Stella has the better total against score so finishes in fifth and Hilary in sixth.  A fantastic achievement by all.

Many congratulations to Castletown A ladies who have capped the season off well, adding the Open Age league title to the Jean Kelly Knockout title they won for the seventh time two weeks ago. Many congratulations must also go Janet on winning both the Open Age and Over 60’s merit titles adding these to the IOM merit she won earlier in the month – an outstanding achievement. I hope everyone has enjoyed their season of bowling!