Author: Matt Wordingham

Disability Bowls England is delighted to announce its team selected to represent DBE at the Home Nations Championships in 2020. 

The Championships will take place from Friday 27th March until Sunday 29th March at Potters Resort, Coast Road, Hopton-on-Sea, NR31 9BX.

Para Squad (Two Mixed Triples with a B6 player in each)

Lead: Michelle White (Dartford Stone Lodge IBC, Kent)*
Second: Kieran Rollings (Kettering Lodge IBC, Northamptonshire)
Skip: Mike Robertson (Peterborough IBC, Cambridgeshire)

Lead: Joe Peplow (Malvern Hills IBC, Worcestershire)*         
Second: Bob Love (Tamworth IBC, Staffordshire)#
Skip: Helen Wood (York & District IBC, Yorkshire)

Reserves (Listed in alphabetical order and to attend if requested):           
David Fisher (Colchester West End IBC, Essex)
Dylan Morton (Cambridge & County IBC, Cambridgeshire)
Jonathan Stokes (Riverain IBC, Hertfordshire)
Gary Swift (Harrogate IBC, Yorkshire)

VI Squad (Two Mixed Pairs with a B2 and B3 player in each)

Lead: Alison Yearling (Plymouth Life Centre, Devon)
Director: Sue Wherry (St Austell BC,  Cornwall)
Skip: Chris Turnbull (Scarborough IBC, Yorkshire)
Director: Jeff Smith (Gedling IBC, Nottinghamshire)

Lead: Sarah Marshall (Berkhamsted IBC, Hertfordshire)
Director: Chris Venn (Lillington BC, Warwickshire)*
Skip: Darren Moon (Plymouth Life Centre, Devon)
Director: David Stott (St Andrews IBC, Somerset)

Team Manager: Mo Monkton

* New Cap
# Captain

Congratulations to Mike Robertson who has topped the 2019 Outdoor Ranking List.

TOP FIVE
1 – Mike Robertson (B8 – 83 points)
2 – Kieran Rollings (B8 – 82 points)
3 – Jonathan Stokes (B7 – 45 points)
4 – Paul Brown (B6 – 44 points)
5 – Steve Ireland (B7 – 30 points)

Click here to view the full 2019 Outdoor Ranking List

Yorkshire’s Helen Wood has won Disability Bowls England’s ‘Player of the Year’ Award for 2019.

This award is presented to a person who has achieved a lot of success in club, county and national competitions. This alone has been a great a personal achievement but has also made a lot of clubs and counties acknowledge that players with a disability can be valuable members and clubs can all be fully inclusive.

Helen’s achievements in the last 12 months include:

• Yorkshire County Women’s Fours Runner-Up
• Skipped a rink for York & District IBC in the winning EIBA Yetton Trophy
• Skipped for Yorkshire in the EIBA Atherley Competition – reaching semi finals
• Was a DBE Pairs semi finalist
• Skipped very well for the North Region in the DBE Inter Region competition
• Rose to the top of the DBE Indoor Ranking list and was recently selected to join the Indoor High Performance Squad.

Helen had some outstanding performances for DBE at the Home Nations Championships, skipping and winning three of the four matches. As well as being such a great skip her experience and personality played a significant part in England retaining the Home Nations Championship.

Helen was presented her award by DBE Patron Greg Harlow and five-time Commonwealth Games gold medalist Ellen Falkner.

[Photograph credit: Steve Watson (ST Sports)]

Disability Bowls England is delighted to announce that the ‘Most Improved Player’ Award for 2019 goes to Northamptonshire’s Steve Bigg.

This was one of the hardest decisions for the panel to make, with many players making a significant improvement over the last 12 months.

DBE sees people who have never played bowls now playing in friendly matches as well as the club player progressing in county and national competitions and those who achieve international recognition.

The panel looked at events over the last indoor and outdoor season and identified a number of key factors that made Steve a worthy recipient of the award:

• Through injury and pain, Steve continued to participate in club and DBE events improving with each match
• He attended group coaching sessions and arranged personal sessions to help raise standard of play
• Although not always a winner, Steve’s improvement resulted in coming very close to winning several DBE competitions over the last 12 months
• He played well in the DBE Inter Region events, Inter Club Triples, Gedling Open Pairs and also performed well in the Test Matches against Australia this summer
• Steve was recently selected to join the Indoor High-Performance Squad

Steve has proven that practice, competition play and sheer dedication can improve performance, and DBE was delighted to recognise this by presenting him as the

We are delighted to award Northamptonshire’s Steve Bigg with the ‘Most Improved Player’ Award for 2019.

Northamptonshire’s Sue White, of Desborough IBC, has won the Disability Bowls England Special Award for 2019.

The DBE Special Award can be presented to a player, volunteer or club; for achievement, endeavour, services to bowls or any other outstanding contribution to our great sport.

The panel this year elected to present the award to Sue, who has dedicated many years encouraging people with a disability to get into the sport.

Sue runs a weekly session for players with a disability but focuses on ability, finding ways to help every player achieve their personal goals, whether that is meeting up for a social roll-up or being encouraged to enter club and DBE events. Such is the success that the club has agreed to her holding a second regular weekly session and has added it to their weekly schedule.

Last year Sue organised a “Pro Am Pairs Comp” which not only brought club members together but raised awareness of players with disability, broke down a lot of preconceptions and demonstrated how easy it is for a club to be inclusive. We understand that this will be an annual event.

As well as the work Sue has done for the players at her club, over the last year she has been an active Ambassador for Disability Bowls England, spreading the word and raising awareness in Northamptonshire.

Sue helped organise a DBE stand and spent a long hot day at the “Sport4Fitness” Disability Fun Day in Northampton informing individual and group leaders of the benefits of playing bowls. There was instant success with a couple of local groups asking to attend the club for “Try Bowls” sessions.

Sue successfully ran the DBE Midlands Region Inter Club Triples Competition and has helped organise DBE High Performance Coaching and Squad Days.

Sue was presented her award by DBE Patron Greg Harlow.

[Photograph Credit: Steve Watson (ST Sports)]