Wales win the I'Anson for the first time

The First English Province's I'Anson Trophy had never been won by a team from Wales and so the victory by Adrian Meikle and his team of James Pougher, Andrew Tanner and Chris Wells was a milestone for the Trophy, of which the first winners were Carlisle in 1897. A peel of 5-5 in their last game against the holder John Sharp was enough to leave them top of the standings after 4 games, while in a typical Schenkel moment, John and his team dropped to 4th overall.

John had started his campaign with a 5-5 result as well, against John Brown, who also peeled his second game by the same score!!

A full house of 16 teams included 2 teams warming up for their European Championship campaign, the winners and Fiona Hawker's English ladies, whose team member Angharad Ward was sporting the scars on her knees from a close encounter with a netball court at school. As luck would have it the two teams were drawn together in the first round and the eventual winners showed the ladies no favours and won all but the last end. Later results for the ladies got them back into the top half of the field.

The Welsh team had been a late replacement for a team which withdrew, and the second place team at the end of the weekend was an even later replacement skipped by Robert Anderson of Galston Haymouth who had been recruited at the European Invitation Seniors at Greenacres just the week before. His team of Anne Anderson, Murray Stevenson and Gail Thomson had been supplemented on the Saturday by Lyndsay Cumming when Robert had been unavailable and ended the weekend with 3 wins.

Also on 3 wins and in third place was the team skipped by James Carswell with Richard Stevenson, Stew Sutherland and John McDermott who had first got involved with English curling as members of the rebel Scottish team which went to the 4 Nations in Kent in 2011.

Entry forms for the 2013 event were waiting on the bar tables as teams came off the ice after the last game and I am sure that next year this great weekend of curling and quizzes will be fully subscribed again.