Father and Son duo win Bowls Scotland Men's Super Series along with current Women's National Champions taking the Ladies Title
In its third year now, the Scottish Super Series competition, an open competition for male and female bowlers of any age or ability, attracted bowlers from all across Scotland to enter in either one or both of the two disciplines being Singles and Pairs.
With the pairs competition taking place over the weekend of the 12th and 13th of August, forty-eight pairs teams from areas all across Scotland made their way to the National Centre for Bowling in Ayr, just two weeks after an extremely successful National Championships took place on the same five greens, to play in the competition.
In the gent’s pair’s competition, the final saw father and son duo, Colin and Jason Banks, go head to head against local Ayrshire bowlers John Candlish and Sam Watson. Being down 13 – 10 after twelve ends, fortunes turned around with the duo scoring ten shots in the next four ends which gave them a seven shot lead. Candlish and Watson scored a total of two shots in the last two ends but this wasn’t enough for them to pull it back and Colin and Jason were announced as the 2017 Gents Pairs Super Series champions.
Speaking about their first Super Series win after the competition Colin Banks shared his delight:
“We are very pleased, this is our first Bowls Scotland gold medal which is very satisfying. There is an additional pleasure of winning with my son who I’m very proud of.”
Bowls Scotland National Academy player Jason added, “It was a tough game today, at the start we were struggling but we managed on both occasions to come back and hang on at the end to win.”
On the same green the ladies pair’s final was being fought out by 2017 National Ladies Pairs Champions Sandra Steven and Kirsteen McLelland of Uphall Station Bowling Club against National Academy player Natalie Docherty and partner Lorna Cameron, who in the semi-final had knocked out the Banks family ladies duo of mother and daughter, Angela and Carla.
Getting off to an excellent start Sandra and Kirsteen found themselves ten points up after only the fourth end and continuing with their run of great shots, the duo managed to stay ahead for the full game being announced as champions after only sixteen ends.
Speaking about winning the competition, Sandra told us:
"I still can't believe we have done it and to win the National title two weeks ago and win this as a double is absolutely amazing."
Reflecting on the competition itself Kirsteen added, “We are National Champions, there are other National Champions and there are Elite Squad players so this is where you want to be. This is the top end of the sport and this is where any bowler should strive to be.”
So with a busy and exciting season having taken place this year for both winners what is next?
Sandra and Kirsteen told us that this is the end of the bowling season for them as they look forward to going on holiday for a couple of weeks and will be able to celebrate their double win but, for the Banks family there is still a lot of bowling to be done.
Son Jason is preparing to head off to play in the British Isles Bowls Council Junior competition andthe European Championships both taking place in September, but with the outdoor season slowly coming to an end that doesn’t mean the end of playing bowls this year for the Banks family, it onlymeans that the indoor season is just around the corner.