Day 1 upsets in Division 3
Winter League
Review of the results from Wednesday's matches in Division 3 at Springwood
The build-up to the opening round of Winter League fixtures steered us to the votes in the Forecast Game which provided a strong pull towards Elland WMC A walking away with the Division 3 title as they received 55% of the votes. They didn't have the greatest of starts going down 2-6 to no-hopers Lindley Lib B. I say no-hopers because that is what the Forecast Game entrants led us to believe. None of the 31 entrants identified Lindley Lib B as a title contender and in fact four of them selected them as their relegation certainties. How wrong can you be? However, it is only week-one of the season, plenty to happen before we can start thinking about such matters.
After narrowly losing the pairs match 19-21, decided with two very different approaches, corner-to-corner versus mid-range round-peg, the Lindley team went on to win both singles games and the match. Greenkeepers tend to keep the grass a little longer during the Winter season and along with some long rain showers leading up to Wednesday's opening round of fixtures, the green was a little pushy but very true and fair otherwise. An overcast sky provided a dull backdrop not matched on the green as the Elland result wasn't the only surprise result of the day.
Milnsbridge A team captain, Jim Baxter, was left rueing his Forecast Game choice of the Elland team as his title-chasers, as his team clocked up a resounding 8-0 win over Lowerhouses B. Jim was a little surprised at how well the team had performed and ashamed of his lack of confidence in not picking them as his Division 3 top choice. Even that 8-0 win wasn't enough to leave them at the top of the table as Mirfield Old Bank also clocked up an 8-0 victory on the day. That looked like a formality against Primrose Hill Lib who are the Division 3 favourites to be relegated and played up to that forecast when losing both singles games 3-21 and the aggregate 25-63. That doesn't tell the full story as the scores point to a very strong Mirfield team as the Pip Hill team consisted of three bowlers who finished in the top four in the Division 4 averages last season.
There was a good crowd of over 55 enjoying the return to the green and they were rewarded with another interesting encounter with last season's 3rd and 4th placed teams meeting up. Last year the Almondbury B team beat their Lockwood Con A counterparts 6-2 in both matches. This year the Lockwood team started stronger with a 6-2 win and maybe they will have a more ambitious target than their past record of never being promoted or relegated in their 4 years in the League.
So a good opening day for the 2026-27 season which was a good advert for Winter League bowling - a good green, good crowd, surprise results, food sales high and thoroughly tested (I enjoyed my hot cheese pasty, a bargain at £1.20 and the homemade soup went down as well) and plenty of socialising between the teams. We all had a good day out.
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