Sidmouth Bowls Club duo Jill Bishop and Carol Smith have received call-ups to the Devon squad for The Atherley Trophy, which is the only national knockout competition for all counties.

Devon has never won this competition, but Jill has played in it for several years now and was part of the team when Devon reached the final in 2014 and 2015. Carol was awarded her indoor county badge in 2016 and is delighted to have been selected for the first game in this year’s Atherley Trophy, which sees Devon take on Wiltshire at Isca Bowls Club in Exeter on Saturday, December 16.

In terms of club action, the Sidmouth ladies played their third match of this season’s Foxlands campaign with the opposition provided by Madeira from Exmouth.

This is always a well-contested affair between two sets of players that have forged good friendships.

On this occasion there was the one success for Sidmouth with a winning home team in the shape of Karen Hollingsdale, Susie Bonnell, Ann Capon and skip Jill Bishop.

There was also success for the away team of Mary Turner, Wendy Limpus, Val Newnham and skip Zena Johnson.

However, the combined home and away matches did not see Sidmouth bank sufficient points to claim an overall win and so just four of the available 10 were secured.

That said, four points represents a decent return as the Sidmouth ladies are now playing in the first division of the competition.

Last Friday saw the Sidmouth ladies play a first round fixture in another ladies’ national knockout competition – the Masons (which, incidentally, is nothing to do with the men’s club of that name!).

The Masons is a competition for ladies over 60 and is played one rink at home and one rink away.

Sidmouth have entered two teams this year with an A and a B team. The A team played against Madeira and had a good win so now proceed to play Isca and the B team also had a good win so next will play Torbay.

The Sidmouth ladies’ B team of Jill Ashton, Mary Turner, Jean Brimson and skip Carol Smith had a terrific win in their opening Masons competition and will now play Torbay.

On Saturday, Sidmouth men played an inter club league match against South Hams and were keen to get their revenge after losing to them in the Topclub competition!

Alas, this was not to be as even though one home team won with a resounding score of 34-9 they still lost overall by just five shots.

The best team was Bill Sheeman, Allen Davis. Mark Stephens and skip Ken Wheeler.

There were no club friendlies across the past week, but the internal club championship began in earnest on Sunday.

There were first round wins for Karen Hollingsdale, Jill Bishop, Wendy Limpus, Jane Painter, Connie Tolley and Carol Smith.