Shropshire Ladies produce blistering performance in British Championships

A 91-shot victory over North Derbyshire meant they finished unbeaten and top of qualifying section three, a 105-chalk home win on a lightning fast Newport No.2 green doing the damage.

And that sets Shropshire up for a last-four shot at Warwick & Worcester – the county that has beaten them in the last two finals of the championship played in 2018 and 2019 – on August 21.

It took nearly four hours for the 12-a-side action to finish at Newport on Sunday, where a clean sweep of the first four starring Sally King (21-6) and Natalia Connor (21-11) put them in control.

Marg Fray (21-10) and Jackie Rutter (21-11) heaped more misery on the visitors in the middle before Tracy Bound (21-10), Hollie Bishton (21-5) and reigning county champion Cheryl Caswell (21-1) really turned up the heat in the back four.

It was much closer away at New Mills with only Viv Cooper (21-17) winning for Shropshire in the first four as they trailed by 15.

But the Allscott Heath trio of Jayne Craggs (21-9), Casey Starling (21-9) and Jamie Phillips (21-11) all shone in the middle to put the visitors ahead before North Derbyshire had three winners at the back to win by 14.

But it was not enough to stop Shropshire from marching towards a British title they have won three times since 2008 – and it would have been more but for Warwick & Worcester.

North Shropshire Ladies’ bid to win the President’s Trophy for a second time was put on hold.

They were due to play South Staffordshire on Sunday in the key clash with legs at the District Club in Whitchurch and Windmill BC in Rugeley.

But association secretary Donna Bennett explained: “The counties were given the option to cancel the match due to the hot weather and play on August 21.

“We therefore cancelled our match with South Staffs and will resubmit teams and venues around August 6 and play on August 21.”

A brave performance in the heat was not enough to earn North Shropshire a place in the semi-finals of the British Parks’ Senior County Championship.

The margin of Sunday’s defeat against South Yorkshire was narrow – 17 points to 14 and by just 22 shots on aggregate over 24 games – but still enough to end their hopes in qualifying group three.

Winning the home leg at Chester Road by just 20 chalks and with seven winners was never going to be sufficient, although big wins by Ben Hinton (21-5) and Derek Wright (21-9) did give the Whitchurch-based side real hope of decent margin early on in the back four.

It was pretty close early on away at Whiteley Woods in Sheffield but, when Andy Smith won 21-12 at No.9, the unbeaten host county were already building towards a strong 42-chalk advantage.

So North Shropshire finished with one win from three matches and third out of four in the group and will now look for success from their younger element in the C2C Consulting Junior Individual Merit and Under-25 Merit at The New Irish Centre in King's Heath, Birmingham, this coming Saturday.