A fluke bowl prevented Baldock Town from reaching the final of the English Wills trophy. Holding three shots on the last end, the Potten End skip against Ian Greig fired his last bowl in desperation. It struck a bowl three yards short and ran that bowl in

A fluke bowl prevented Baldock Town from reaching the final of the English Wills trophy.

Holding three shots on the last end, the Potten End skip against Ian Greig fired his last bowl in desperation.

It struck a bowl three yards short and ran that bowl into the head, removing the Baldock shots and lying one to Potten End.

Despite his best efforts, Greig could not remove that bowl which meant that Potten End had won overall by one shot.

And despite the last end setback, Greig won by 11 shots and Mel Swain by four shots, not quite enough to overcome the 16-shot deficit on John Crosby's rink. Potten End went on to defeat Rosedale in the final.

On the same day, Baldock also played a four-rink mixed match against Stotfold for the Maurice Dear Trophy and ran out comfortable winners to retain the trophy for the third consecutive year.

Baldock completed their North Herts League programme with a win over Letchworth GC at Norton Common.

Despite a tricky green and appalling weather, Baldock won on both rinks and finished their league programme with only one dropped point out of a maximum of 42.

They will now move to the league semi-final a week on Sunday (August 24).

Scores: Mel Swain won 29-13. Dave Turner won 25-22

In a friendly match on Saturday against local rivals Whitethorn, Baldock won an enjoyable encounter in spite of the rain by 27 shots.

Scores: D Turner won 27-10, P Riley lost 19-21, M Wintrip won 22-13, J Carter won 18-17.

Whitethorn's men played their county league away at Willian last Thursday.

The win and total six points mean that they have finished top of their league and will now go to the play-offs to decide the winner of the two divisions in North Herts.

The teams were: Dave Marr, Ron Adams, Barry Platten and Terry Graham won 20-18; Albie McLellan, Billy Chaudhery, Gary Blackbourn and Ted Fuller won 19-14.

Whitethorn also played their North Herts Triples League away at Stevenage Town last Wednesday.

It was a close match with Whitethorn winning on one rink and just losing on the last bowl delivered by Stevenage on the other rink.

However, with the aggregate score, Whitethorn achieved four out of the total six points available.

The triples were: Carol Platten, Rose Varney and Anne Gulliver 22-15; Elaine Jones, Carol Conlon and Mary Dean 13-16. Both Elaine Jones and Carol Conlon were playing in their first league game.

Hitchin Town's county league campaign stalled last Thursday as they lost their last match against Holwell by 17 shots (29-46).

Hitchin stay second in the league, but must now wait for the remaining matches to be played to see if they go forward to the knockout stage.

Rink one: G Munge, N Parke, M Wadsworth, S Dawson lost 12-26. Rink two: L Lane, R Parker, M Squires, I Thorne lost 17-20.

On Saturday, Hitchin travelled to Potton with six triples, only to lose by 57 shots (71-128). The top rink was Reg Allen, Jackie Dawson and Bob Parker.

Rink one: J Parish, J Hill, S Dawson lost 10-18. Rink two: R Allen, J Dawson, R Parker drew 18-18. Rink three: H Hartop, G Leuty, I Page lost 14-15. Rink four: G Corda, B Clark, A Hill lost 10-26. Rink five: KJ Warren, N Webb, M Squires lost 7-35. Rink six: P Bamfield, N Parke, G Billingham lost 12-16.

Hitchin weekday bowlers played Letchworth's North Herts club away last Monday.

It was a fairly close game throughout but the North Herts club won overall by just six shots (66-72).

Hitchin put up a better performance when they played at home on their Bancroft greens last Thursday against Stevenage's Three Horseshoes club. They won on three of the four rinks giving Hitchin a 67-54 win overall.

Rink one: B Clark, S Ingram, M Williams won 24-12. Rink Two: A Marsden, R Cole, G Leuty won 19-10. Rink Three: R Allen, D Conder, J Porter won 14-12. Rink Four: B Marsden, P Bamfield, K Porter lost 10-20.

Letchworth and District entertained North West Essex BA for an outdoor game, played at Riverain, after a gap of more than a decade.

The match consisted of six triples and Letchworth only trailed by seven shots at the halfway point of nine ends.

Unfortunately North West Essex had the better of the second half of the game, eventually triumphing 109-88 and winning five out of the six triples.

The District's only winning triple consisted of Norman Parke (Hitchin Town), Ben O'Sullivan (Stevenage Town) and skip Neil Mean (Datchworth) who won 29-6.

Other scores (skips only): W Martin 10, R Barnes 24; S Chamberlain 14, T Martinez 21; R Adams 13, D Dersley 21; T Playle 12, J Hopkins 18; D Wright 10, A Spackman 19.

Howard Garden played Three Horseshoes on Sunday in a SDML away match, winning 74-62 and taking five out of seven points.

A rearranged away SDML match last Wednesday was played against Willian which the home side won by 12 shots.

On Saturday, Howard Garden played the annual Hospice Cup which was won by Tony Wood, Harry Tindall and Pam Rowe - £100 was raised for the hospice.

Shefford played another round in the East Beds League last Monday. The A team continued their slump by losing to Henlow by two shots. The B team continued on their survival run in Division Four by winning at home to Sandy Con D. The C team lost at Maulden.

The ladies' A team rearranged a cancelled game for Friday and won by five shots at Sandy Con B (36-31).

Saturday saw the men lose at Norton 83-43, losing on all four rinks in wet conditions. Sunday saw the men's A team's bad run continue when they went out of the knockout cup losing at Sandy Con B despite leading for most of the game.

Datchworth played five matches during the week. Scores: Datchworth Blue 30 Welwyn GC B 34; Datchworth Gold 41 Welwyn GC A 36; Datchworth Gold 15 Northaw and Cuffley 35; Datchworth Blue 51 Aston Whistlers 30; Datchworth 52 North Herts 67.