Surprises in Veterans Pairs KO Finals Day
- Veterans League
- 4 hours ago
- 2 min read
Veterans League
Kirkheaton Con B team players, Ian Johnsey and Leon Wilczynski, caused two major shocks in Thursday's Finals Day at Almondbury Lib in this year's Pairs KO competition. Drawn against their own A team club mates, Garry Senior and Andy Lumb, in the Quarter-Finals they used their 8-point handicap to its full advantage to run out 21-13 victors. Things got even better for them as they then faced the reigning Champions, Ashley Daykin and Andy Mitchell, and played magnificently to run out 21-15 winners this time to reach the Final.
In the other half of the draw the 2024 Champions, Alan Stephenson & Ian Lunn, edged it past the Lindley Lib pair of Mick Ward and Bob Booth 21-19 but then were beaten in the semi-finals by the Lockwood Con pairing of Peter Kain and Gerard Clarke 21-13 to mean that we were guaranteed a new name on the trophy this year. Although the winners were a new pairing one half of that pair had won the trophy previously. Peter Kain had a different partner when he won the title in 2014 which was the first of three consecutive years that three different pairings from the same club won the competition.
Could the day's giantkillers raise their game once more to claim the trophy and would this have been a first for a Division 4 team? The answer to the first of those questions came from the very first end in the Final as the left-hand of Peter Kain took over with an over-the-crown strategy that saw them take 8 of the first 10 ends to take full control. The Kirkheaton pair tried valiantly to turn things around but their rare handling of the jack didn't allow them to introduce their stronger longer game into proceedings and they ran out of steam to go down 13-21 but with a memorable day behind them.
Well done to the winners who walk away with the trophy and the runners-up who walk away with the memories and what might have been. The full Final Scorecard is below along with all the day's results and more photos of the day.
The Final scorecard
