CHAWTON Park Indoor Bowling Club made a great start to the second half of the season when, as underdogs, they came up against Victory IBC in the National Mixed Top Club competition.

Chawton, urged on by their supporters, gave an excellent team performance to defeat the powerful Portsmouth side.

John Blair fought hard against Danny Smith in the men’s two-wood singles, but came up just short at 10-14.

Linda Habberfield met seasoned campaigner Rosemary Bailey in the ladies’ two-wood singles and led for long periods before losing out 12-14.

The mixed pairs combination of Sue Murray and Graham Robinson led for most of their match and recorded a fine 22-17 win over Tara Clarke and Gary Starks.

Chawton’s mixed triple of Barry Smith, Brenda Plumpton and Mark Fyfield were never behind in their match and ran out 15-10 winners.

The home four of Dick Holden, Margaret Leppard, Margaret Holden and Adam White began their penultimate end trailing 15-17, but with Chawton two shots up overall.

The match was thus in the balance, but with everyone contributing, Chawton drew level at 17-all, meaning that Victory required four shots on the last end to win overall.

Chawton played a virtually unbeatable last end and gained two shots to win 19-17 and complete a memorable victory over some of Hampshire’s finest.

Other national competitions were played out over the Christmas period. Charlie Spear might have thought he had upset Santa after first losing a close match 19-21 to Gary Johnson in the O60s singles and then, joined by Robert Hutchinson, losing 16-18 to Barry Smith and Dave Turner in a tense O60s pairs.

There was some festive cheer for Spear, though, as part of Graham Robinson’s O60s fours win over Dick Holden’s rink.

Robinson’s national four then travelled to Banister Park and lost 14-19 to Paul May’s four.

Margaret Holden and Adam White had a successful Saturday, completing a comfortable 24-11 win over Steve and Jan Whitehead in the National mixed pairs in the morning and then in the afternoon a resounding 24-2 victory at Victory IBC in the Hampshire mixed pairs.

On Sunday morning, Chawton hosted a closely-fought Home Counties League match between Hampshire and Surrey. Both teams won on three rinks, with Surrey taking the match overall by four shots.

In the afternoon, Chawton welcomed back Tongham BC for a friendly match. Chawton finished 105-93 winners, with Joan Cox, Richard Rodwell and Dave Atwell securing top rink.

Earlier in the week, Chawton defeated Headley 110-85 in another friendly. Chawton won on four rinks and Dave Bass, Sheila Morrison and Don Windle took top rink, 26-12.