Garway crowned AC South West Federation Champions 2025

After winning the semi finals against Bristol away 6-1, Garway had made the Federation finals for a second time in consecutive years. Sadly our opponents (Budleigh Salterton) were only able to field three players. In the morning Bryan Gidley played singles against Stuart Smith who plays off 0.5 meaning Bryan had 8.5 bisques. Stuart got an early hit in, with a break ready to be made, but tried to run hoop one slowly to create a rush, and got his black stuck in the hoop. Bryan then used his bisques wisely and went peg with Red using just three bisques. For the rest of the game Stuart had only three more shots, all long and all missed, and Bryan went all way round using 5 bisques and pegged himself out. Winning 26-0 with half a bisque remaining, all in about 1 hr 30min.

Simon Collinson and Andrew Bailey played doubles against Kevin Wright and Paul Whittall, both teams playing alternate shots, Simon and Andrew had 2.5 bisques. Paul and Kevin got off to an early start but were unable to make a break and only passed through one hoop, Simon and Andrew made a break and managed to go to penult using only one bisque. With their second ball Simon struggled to find the length of the lawn, but Andrew was consistent, the game was a bit scrappy but eventually Garway won on time 21-5.

So at lunch Garway were 2-0 up, needing only one win to clinch the trophy.

For the afternoon games; Simon drew Stuart, Andrew drew Paul and Bryan drew Kevin,

Simon got off to a very slow start, suffering with nerves using a couple of bisques poorly and facing Stuart’s incredible ability to hit anything the full length of the lawn. Simon then used two bisques to go to Rover with his first ball, leaving Stuart with a semi wired leave , Stuart shot for Simon’s ball but hit the centre peg, from there Simon went through all the hoops using a couple of bisques and finished by peeling his other ball through rover and pegged out for 26 points to 7, with 2.5 bisques unused, all over in an hour.

Andrew used his bisques wisely against Paul, playing very well, getting both balls to rover whilst still having 1 bisque remaining, at this point time was running out and played tactically to keep his opponent out, winning on time 22-9.

Bryan had 1 bisque against Kevin, which he used early to get ahead in the game, but it was a fairly scrappy game with each player scoring one or two points at a time, Kevin was coming back strong at the end but Bryan managed to hold him off, winning on time with a score of 16-13.

The result is Garway win with clean sweep 5-0 against Budleigh Salterton, getting their hands on their first silverware. 

Huge congratulations to the whole squad (left to right below), Bryan, Simon (Capt), Andrew, Mark, Steve and Sarah.