Sir Alexander Fleming Trophy (London CC)

This year's winners - Ivan Zadorozny (skip), Neil Maycock, Charles Murphy and Henry Carter

One thing that always fascinates me is the long history of the trophies played for in clubs around the country – you can look at the piece of silverware and realise that 100 or so years ago this very same trophy was being contested in a long lost ice rink or on an outdoor pond. For example, the Preston Curling Club’s magnificent I’Anson Trophy was first played in 1897 according to the names on the trophy and was won by the Carlisle Curling Club – no team member names on the trophy but where did they play I wonder?

The London Curling Club’s Sir Alexander Fleming Memorial Trophy is not quite so old having been presented to the club in 1957, but a history of almost uninterrupted play of 55 years is impressive. The trophy was first seen at the AGM of the London Curling Club in May 1957 and was specially made for Willie Fleming, a club member, to present in memory of his cousin, the famous Sir Alexander Fleming, discoverer of penicillin.

The Trophy was not held in 1968 as it was apparently decided that it would only be held every alternate year with the club’s Straus Trophy but this decision was obviously overturned later as it became an annual competition after just the one ‘missing’ year.

There are no names on the Trophy for 1982, and no mention of winners in the club’s minutes although there appears to have been a weekend in Kinross set aside in the club calendar and, even up to 3 weeks before the competition date, the minutes still talk about inviting interested parties from Holiday Inn to the weekend.

The fate of the 1985 event is also a mystery as it does not appear to have been held. By this time I was involved in the Province of London (as the London Curling Club had evolved into – another topic for future discussion perhaps) and my personal diary does have an entry for the weekend to be held in Kinross which is later scored out – perhaps the lack of curling in London, with just a few people attending at Peterborough had led to a lack of interest. My diary also tells me that it was the Peterborough CC AGM that weekend – presumably arranged after the cancellation of the Fleming weekend.

The final ‘missing’ year in the Fleming Trophy history is 1997 when the minutes are quite clear that a lack of entries led to the cancellation of the event which was due to be held at Pitlochry. The minutes record that Stephen Hinds was actually phoning around possible entrants during a committee meeting just a month before the event, with no luck, leading to the event being cancelled that same night.

While the competition was originally held in Richmond where the club had regular ice between 1951 and 1981, it went on the road following the closure of Richmond and the ’Fleming Weekend’ became an established event on the London calendar. Trips to Kinross, Pitlochry, Forest Hills, Lochgoilhead, Letham Grange and Greenacres all have their own set of memories, but what is astonishing and, hopefully coincidental, is how many of the venues visited (those in italics) have now closed since they were visited by the London members!!!

Since Fenton’s rink opened it has found a home there though the size of the rink has restricted the number of possible entries to 6, though even that has proved difficult to achieve on a couple of occasions.

And so to this year’s competition and the whole point of the above introduction was to emphasise the history of the event which was brought home to me with the realisation this year that we had past winners from 5 different decades participating.

From the 1970s – Ernest Fenton (winner in 1970 and 1971)

From the 1980s – Forbes Fenton (1987) and James Gibb (1988)

From the 1990s – John Brown (1991, 1993, 1994, 1995), Jean Robinson (1991, 1993, 1994, 1995) and Mark Wilkinson (1992)

From the 2000s – Lana Watson (2005 and 2008) and John Brown (2009)

From the 2010s – Neil Maycock (2010 and 2011), Ross Barr (2011) and John Brown (2011)

And so what would happen this year – would Ernest Fenton win it again 41 years after his last win? Would Neil Maycock make it 3 in a row, each time in a different team? Would Hetty Garnier lead her team of Juniors to victory? There were no well established teams so it was all very open.

The first session produced the first shock when Ivan Zadorozny with 6 stones of his own in the house failed to draw for the 7 which would have been only the second recorded in the last 30 years of Fleming play. A 6 would have to suffice, in itself a rare beast with just 6 previously recorded in 30 years, the last in 2000. The victim of this one was John Sharp who, although he won the majority of the ends, fell by a score of 4-11. In other games that first session, John Brown recovered from going 0-5 after 2 ends to peel with Hetty Garnier while Mark Wilkinson came from 3 behind with 2 ends to play to win 6-5.

As the only 2 winners from that session Ivan Zadorozny faced Mark Wilkinson and lo and behold Ivan did it again with another 6 on his way to winning 10-5. This was the first time 2 sixes had been recorded at a Fleming weekend since 1984 when unfortunately the same team was on the receiving end of both of them (to my regret I was the skip of that team!!). John Sharp defeated John Brown 6-4 after losing 4 singles in a row while Ernest Fenton beat Hetty Garnier in a close tussle by 8-6.

Into session 3 on the Sunday morning and Ivan showed that his Saturday form had not deserted him racing into an early 8-1 (just a 4 end – no 6s) lead against Ernest Fenton and finally winning by 8-5. Hetty Garnier won her first game of the weekend by beating John Sharp 7-6 and Mark Wilkinson defeated John Brown 7-5 to become Ivan’s nearest challenger and in fact the only team which could take the trophy away from him.

As Ivan had played Mark earlier in the weekend he played the team in third, Hetty Garnier, while Mark had to beat John Sharp to have any hope of winning overall and only if Ivan lost. As well as the one game win behind he was only 1 end behind but had a far inferior shots difference.

After 3 ends of the final session things were indeed going Mark’s way as he was leading 3-1 while Ivan was losing by the same margin but after that the balance swung and Mark lost 4 ends in a row while Ivan unleashed another big end (a 5 this time) to take victory in the game by 7-6 and in the competition overall, thus providing Neil Maycock with his third Fleming triumph in a row, each of them with a totally different team – queues are forming to join him for next year’s competition!!

So congratulations to Ivan Zadorozny, Neil Maycock, Henry Carter and Charles Murphy on a great performance. The runners – up on ends won were John Sharp, Nigel Patrick, Ian McDonald and James Gibb with Mark Wilkinson, Lana Watson, Gary Tapp and Mike Robinson in third.