News

Northern paperwork such as minutes , constitution and playing rules are now available via the homepage.
All Northern members can also receive any other regional information that is sent out.
To add your name to the list use the contacts form.

Unfortunately Yorkshire received their now customary beating by a dominant Leicester team.
No excuses due to holidays this year , the squad just didn't play well enough.

Squad results can be seen here for any masochistic Yorkshire players or sadistic Leicestershire players.

Congratulations to Andy and Jack who playing as a squad of 4 with Robert Cooter and Alex Bruce from Kent won the EPA Junior Triples at Lordswood (Kent) yesterday.

The regional singles will now be held on SATURDAY 20th September to avoid a clash with the EPA over 50's which is being held at Doncaster on the 21st September.

The terrain at Wetherby was due to host the Mistral PC vs Marches PC (Hereford) match in the 5th round qualifier of the European knockout for clubs on the 27th January. For some unknown reason they have transferred the match to Doncaster , perhaps they thought the coche would float.

2) & 3) - On the 23rd January 2008 ( I think the water level had dropped about 18 inches and is shown between 3 and 4 feet deep.)

Congratulations to Mistral who are the last Northern club still in the competition.
They are using Wetherby as their home venue and on 18/11/07 they beat Half Crown (West Midlands) 4-3 in the 3rd round in the morning and then carried on in the afternoon to beat Wetherby 4-3.
The conditions were atrocious with rain and low temperatures all day.
The terrain was partially flooded and muddy due to heavy overnight rain.
The 1st match was late starting which meant the 2nd match finished under the floodlights from the 5 a side football pitch.
None of these factors were enough to put Mistral off (or not sufficiently for the other teams) and they now only have 1 more round to get through in order to reach the indoor final stage (6 teams) at Whittlesey in March.

The 11th winter season has now started but here are some statistics and fairly useless facts from the first 10 years

There have been 99 events.
No event has been cancelled but 1 was played in up to an inch of snow and 1 was moved 15 miles to another club because of snow.

The highest turnout was at Wigginton on 5/11/02 with 30 pairs.
The lowest turnout was at Bridlington on 7/2/06 with 7 pairs.
The average turnout across the 99 events was 16 pairs.
The most popular year was 2004 / 2005 when the average turnout was 23 pairs.

251 different players have taken part.
There have been 8,565 games played.
53 players have played at least 100 games.
The most games won was by Alan Swift (321) but he also played in most games (521 from 98 events).
The most successful of the regular players was Pete Rowlands who won 208 of the 262 games he played in (79%)
Pete also won the league 3 times in the 6 seasons he was able to play.
Trevor Inman has also won the league 3 times.

48 photos (courtesy of Neill Rank) of Northern players and drinkers from Brean Sands 2007.
(photos are reduced quality for quick download and general atmosphere - better quality available if required).
photos link

This section will include general documents such as the constitution and playing rules and all meeting agendas and minutes.

This years event resulted in a victory for North West combined with East Yorkshire but only on points difference over North Yorkshire, both squads finishing on 19 wins. South + West Yorkshire were 3rd with 16 wins.

There was going to be a 1 week gap between the last of the planned summer tournaments and the start of the winter league.
For anyone likely to suffer withdrawal symptoms York RI are holding a Triples on the 21st October.
Flyer with details available on the calendar page.

Ranking points were gained by finishing in the top 4 positions at 28 summer tournaments at Northern clubs ( for details click here ).

Congratulations also to Mistral whose players (Luke , James & Ted ) occupied the top 3 positions and to the relatively new Leeds club who had Mike and Neill in 4th and 5th.

60 different Northern players finished on the list.
(The list only shows Northern players - points were also scored by 13 players from within Northern who are not members and by 9 East Midlands members - their inclusion would not have affected the top 30 places).

The Champion of Champions weekend was held at Ickleford Sports & Social Club in Hertfordshire.
On the Saturday Northern were represented at the Pairs by James Hart + Luke Howard & Mike Walkley + Neill Rank.
Mike & Neill won 3 from 5 games but failed to make the semi finals on points difference, 2 of the games they won were against pairs that made the semi finals.
James & Luke won 4 of their 5 games to qualify for the semi finals.
They won their semi final with ease but in the final against a pair from East Midlands they never got going and lost 13 - 1.
This was the best position so far achieved by a Northern team at the Champion of Champions.

On the Sunday Northern were represented in the Triples by Mike Walkley + Neill rank + Alan Swift (the team were entered as a foursome but Sue Swift did not play). The other Northern team who qualified for the event were unable to go.
Mike, Neill and Alan won 2 from 4 so did not make the semi finals. Having won their 1st game they were 6-0 up in the 2nd against the eventual winners from Chiltern but from their it went downhill.

Mike and James also represented Northern in the shooting championship.
Neither were able to score as well as they did in the Northern shooting championship with Mike getting 12 and James 21.
However James' score was good enough for 3rd place.

The format will return to the usual 3 squads of 6 triples rather than last years 2 squads of 8 triples.
To balance the sizes of the areas within Northern the squads will be
North Yorkshire , South + West Yorkshire , North West (Lancashire & Cheshire) + East Yorkshire.

Northern players who would like to play but have not yet been contacted should contact
North Yorkshire - Chris Best
East Yorkshire + North West - Ted Beetham
South + West Yorkshire - Alan Swift

The Northern AGM will be held at the Wetherby Sports Association on Saturday October 20th starting at 10.30 a.m.

This will be followed by a Northern Regional meeting at which only Northern officers and Northern clubs will be allowed to vote but all Northern players are welcome to attend.

Motions for the AGM may be put forward by any Northern registered club or Northern officer and must be received by the Regional Secretary at least 14 days prior to the meeting.

Nominations for any Northern officer position may be put forward by any Northern registered club.
Candidates may also be nominated by a minimum of three individual Northern members.
All nominations must be in writing and must be received by the Regional Secretary at least 14 days prior to the meeting.
The nomination must include the members signature consenting to the nomination and consenting to serve if elected.

Serving officers may stand for re-election without a new nomination being required and all current officers have agreed to re-stand.
Several officers are only re-standing due to the lack of nominations in recent years and would be happy for new members to stand for the committee.

Another superb result for the Northern squad who equalled last years highest placing - 3rd in Division 1, this time with a record number of wins (60).
Northern only missed out on 2nd place from Kent on points difference and were only 4 wins behind the winners (Southern).

A good weekend as well for the Challenge squad who also equalled their highest placing (4th) with a record number of wins (25 from 11 rounds).

Congratulations to all 52 Northern players who took part (including 7 playing in the EPA combined squad in division 2) and thank you to the 3 squad managers who are an essential part of the squad.

Full squad results are on the results page and further scores are available on the EPA site.

Photos (courtesy of Tony Wignall) of 12 of the teams from the 2007 qualifiers.
(photos are reduced quality for quick download - better quality available if required).
photos link

Northern will be represented at the national shooting competition (held across the Champion of Champions weekend near Luton) by James Hart and Mike Walkley. James won the qualifying competition by 1 point from Mike with Alan Swift in 3rd.

Luke & James continued their domination of the regional pairs event winning for the third year in a row, inflcting very heavy defeats (13-1 , 13-0) on 2 of their opponents in the last 8. The final however was much closer with Mike & Neill following up their regional triples victory with a good game until half way through when they were leading 7-6 but 1 bad end gave James and Luke 5 and they were unable to come back from that.

Only 9 Northern players made the trip to Bury St. Edmunds last weekend.
The weather was reasonable on the Saturday but terrible (very wet and cold) on the Sunday and Monday.
The best performance from a Northern player was from John Gaughan who played with Shirley Hiscock from the Isle of Wight in the Mixed Pairs and won 5 out of 6 to finish 2nd. Chris Best playing with John Edmundson from East Midlands also won 5 out of 6 and finished 5th.
The majority of the other performances were mid table.

Andy, Richard and Jack finished 2nd in the BPF Junior Triples.
All three have been selected to play for GB in the North Sea Tournament.

14 Northern players were at the Jersey open last weekend.
The best performance was by John and Angie Gaughan who won £100 for finishing 3rd of 112 pairs.
Stewart and Pauline Ainley also did well to finish in 8th.

A weakened Yorkshire team were unable to compete with a strong Leicestershire team at the Willow in Leicester and went down 12 - 36 in the first match in 8 years to be a one sided contest.

Congratulations to Angela Fletcher , Chris O'Rourke and Sue Kirby who are in 2nd position (out of 21) after the first of the 2 grand prix events.
They won 5 games out of 6 and lost 12-13 to the only team to remain unbeaten.
The other 6 Northern ladies (1 Northern team and 2 mixed teams) all won 3 out of 6 and are mid table.
Full results are on the BPF website.

The 10th winter season ended at York RI with snow flurries and gales.
17 Pairs braved the conditions with a local pub being noticeably fuller than usual afterwards as players warmed up.
Ted Beetham of Mistral retained the perpetual trophy winning the league by 1 game over Mick Hardisty of the Fox.
Full results are available on the Winter Pairs page and dates for the 2007 / 2008 season are available on the calendar page.

Woodstock are running a summer league in 2007 as well as their usual tournaments.
Dates are available by clicking here
For more information ring Cath Thompson on 0161 2317738

Example club flyers have been added to the website.
Northern Clubs can have their own flyers made up free of charge.

Regional Event Winners have now been added to the results archive.
40 different players made it on to this list in the period 1998 - 2006