01.08.08: SBA 2008 FINALS AT AYR - Your webmaster has travelled to Ayr for this year's Scottish Bowling Association finals. From a local perspective, first up on Thursday was the rink from Fairfield and, despite getting off to a great start (leading 7-1) they lost 11-20. Paul Carnegie from Newgate also lost out in his first match in the Singles, coming up just short at 19-21. In the triples Hope Paton also lost out 5-15. Next up came the Broughty Castle pair of Brian Morris and Mike Crooks, both had excellent games as they recovered from a poor start (2-8 after 6 ends) to record a 21-19 victory. Finally, at 4pm, Craigie's time had come as young Craig Stewart stepped out onto Green 4 to start his campaign. Unfortunately, just as the players took to the green the heavens opened and most of the match was played in heavy rain. This obviously affected the standard of play but both Craig and his opponent, Blair Mackie from Newbridge, played very well and treated us to an exciting match with Craig eventually winning 21-19. Craig got off to a great start and led 12-5 but Blair fought back to level at 14-14. Thereafter it was a close match and Craig sealed a great win with a count of two in the 26th end. The highlight of the match was in the 19th end when, after Blair had trailed the jack through into the ditch to lie three, Craig produced a magnificent bowl to draw within a foot of the ditch to take the shot. I'll be back with more news from today's matches later.

02.08.08: SBA 2008 FINALS AT AYR - Yesterday saw the last sixteen and quarter final matches played. First up were the Pairs, and Brian & Mike from Broughty Castle lost 22-11, leaving Craig Stewart as the only District 4 representative left in this year's championships. Craig's next match saw him record another win, this time 21-7 over Kyle Newhall from Hillside to progress to the quarter finals. Unfortunately the rains came again and this made conditions very tricky for the quarter final matches. The match was very close most of the way through but then Craig surged ahead to lead 19-14 and it looked for all the world as though he was going through to the semi-finals but his opponent, Iain McMillan from Campbeltown, produced some excellent bowls to record two counts of three to lead 20-19. In the next end Iain got a bowl right on the jack and Craig missed twice with weighted shots and the match was over 21-19. To say Craig and his supporters were gutted can only be described as an huge understatement! Congratulations to Craig for a great run in reaching the quarter finals - undoubtedly a superb achievement of which he, and Craigie, can be very proud. I'll be posting a special SBA Finals report with photos within the next few days - look out for that!

13.08.08: CITY OF DUNDEE CHAMPIONSHIPS - Last night's opening round saw plenty of goods results for Craigie with five out of six entries progressing through to Friday's quarter finals. Unfortunately, in the Champ of Champs Ian Ringsell lost out, going down 21-7. In the pairs David Briggs and Alan 'Prez' Brown won 13-8, while our triple were handed a bye. Our rink, skipped by Stephen Swann, progressed with a 14-11 win and our senior triple and senior four both progressed, recording 28-19 and 15-14 wins respectively. With this year's finals being played at Craigie it's great to have so many teams getting through - let's hope the goods results continue on Friday. Good luck to all our lads for their matches.