Champ of Champ Fours – 17 & 18 May 2025
Orewa enjoyed a rare double success by winning both men’s and women’s titles when the Bowls North Harbour champion of champions fours titles were concluded at the weekend at the Warkworth club.
In the men’s final the Orewa team of Peter Clark, Tony Clark, Paul Daniels and Mal Wallace upset the phenomenally successful Browns Bay combination of Neil Fisher, John Walker, Colin Rogan and Lindsay Gilmore 16-13. With the score tied at 13 all after the 15 ends, the toss was won by Orewa who then decided to give the mat away. “Always take last bowl” said Pete Clark.
And in the women’s final, Orewa’s Tira Campbell, Jill Green, Elizabeth Ring and Valarie Taylor beat Sunnybrae’s Keryl Blackburn, Robyn Brown, Jan MacGowan and Vickie O’Connor, 19-4.
The respective wins proved two of the basic truisms of bowls. The first was that upsets are essential factor in the sport, for when anyone saw the opposing lines for the men’s final the odds offered by any unofficial bookmaker on the formidable Browns Bay four would have been extremely short. For between them Fisher, Walker, Rogan and Gilmore could muster up almost 90 centre titles, with all of them gold stars and in the cases of Fisher, Walker and Rogan with multiple bars to that distinction.
By contrast, none of the Orewa had ever won a single Harbour title, though Peter Clark, before moving across the Harbour Bridge, had always performed creditably in the Auckland centre.
The loss means that Rogan will have to wait a little longer before adding to his staggering swag of 39 centre titles and thus gaining his seventh gold star bar. Three weeks ago he was also in the rare runner-up position, for him, when beaten in the final of the champion of champion singles.
In the semi-finals the Browns Bay four looked as commanding as ever in beating Manly’s Keith Benson, Andy Dorrance, Matt Higginson and Brendon Walton 19-7, while Orewa beat Mairangi Bay’s Tony Popplewell, Alan Telford, Michael Thomas and Leon Wech 14-4.
The second of the reminders of the sport’s fascinations was that it remains a game that can be played to high levels whatever a person’s age. For Elizabeth Ring in the Orewa women’s four remains highly competitive even at the age of 87 and after having played for 45 years. This remarkable lady is now within one title of a gold star, having previously won the championship fours in 2011-12, and the champion of champion fours previously in 2017 and 2019.
Tira Campbell has been another who has enjoyed a long bowls career, having started 30 years ago when she won the old women’s centre’s first year singles. She now has eight centre titles in all.
It was the first centre title for Valarie Taylor, which was perhaps predictable for a fortnight ago she was in the final of the champion of champion pairs.
Both women’s semi-finals were closely fought, with just one shot between winning and losing. Orewa beat a strong Mairangi Bay lineup of Julie Chhour, Elaine McClintock, Kerin Roberts, the latter pair with a heap of titles behind them, and Hanaan Shahwan 17-16, and Sunnybrae beat Northcote’s Robyn Autridge, Lyn Brown, Anne Osborn and Jill Smith 10-9.