The Sidmouth Bowls Club County matches in January provided a stern test against strong teams from Torbay and Dawlish, writes Ron Cook,

In the Charles Parrott competition match against Torbay, Sidmouth were 19-15 home winners with a good performance from Wilf Radburn, Trevor Smith, Ed Backhouse and skip Jim Wherlock.

In the away match, the Sidmouth team found themselves down 15 shots after seven ends without reply. However, they acquitted themselves well in the second half of the match coming back to finish 12-21. Very much a game of two halves!

Earlier in the week, Torbay were again the oppositon for a County Trophy Over-60s match and once again the South Devon side dominated, winning on all four rinks.

An Interclub meeting with Dawlish saw both Sidmouth home teams put in a very good performance.

Wilf Radburn, Allan Davis, Bob Daniels and skip Norman Brimson led the way with a score of 23-15.

Ray Tallent, Peter Mison, David Fairclough and skip Jim Wherlock came back from three down at nine ends to win 26-21. However, overall, Dawlish won the fixture by six shots.

The four points banked by Sidmouth leaves them sitting fourth in the league table.

Due to bad weather, the meeting with Dunkerswell was unfortunatley postponed, but it will still be played as it will be rearranged for later in the season.

Earlier in January Sidmouth entertained a team from Feniton. Despite losing two rinks, Sidmouth ran out overall winners due to a superb performance from Pat Hague, Jean Green, Trevor Smith and skip Bert Hague who secured a 34-10 success! That topped the balance in favour of Sidmoiut who were overall 62-52 winners.

There was a similar outcome in a men’s match against Madeira which Sidmouth won 61-47, losing on just two rinks. The team of Dave Lever, Chas Coates, Bob Daniels and Ron Cook led all the way to a 29-9 win.

In a very closely fought match, Sidmouth got the better of Honiton, winning by a single shot at 55-54.

That was followed up with another terrific win, a 61-36 success over Topsham.

Topsham have very few full-time indoor players, but still proved a challenge drawing on one rink.