Highlights
The 2026 Men’s County Supplementary competition was held on August 2nd at Windle B.C. in St. Helens (Merseyside). County teams not finishing in first or last place within their group join the Isle of Man to make up the eight counties who compete in this one day ‘8 player team’ event. Four teams play a round robin on each green, with the winner of each group completing in a final which is played across both greens so to not disadvantage either in the final.
Green No.1. had Cheshire, Derbyshire, the Isle of Man and Staffordshire all playing each other, while Green No.2. hosted Greater Manchester, Lancashire, South Yorkshire and Wales.
With both greens running quite differently, the sun out and greens gathering pace throughout the day, it’s always a tricky event to predict. Also as this event is always a long day, those getting to the final will experience greens slowing down again and that all important who stays on the green they’ve played on and who goes over to the one where the other finalist will have their advantage.
Green No.1. was a topsy-turvy affair all day. A slightly friendlier pace at the beginning of the day produced a narrow win for Derbyshire against Cheshire by 14 shots with Sam Davies and Dan Hartley’s wins narrowly edging out an excellent show from Matty Worden. Staffordshire cruised past the Isle of Man by 36 shots in game one with six winners to two and Jacob Ash’s win 21-9 being the highlight.
In game two as the green started to trot, Isle of Man trounced Derbyshire by 31 shots with Steve Kelly’s 21-7 & Paul Dunn’s 21-8 taking the tie and Cheshire beat Staffordshire by 25 via good cards from Lee Johnstone, Matty Worden & Ian Howell.
So all teams had one victory from two matches and literally it’s anyone’s win going into game three. Cheshire inched out the Isle of Man by two shots which in truth was no good to either unless Derbyshire v Staffordshire was just as tight, and it wasn’t. Derbyshire woke up from their heavy defeat and beat Staffordshire by 37 shots which included single figure wins for both Furniss brothers and a smaller set of bowls for Harry Chapman rather than the huge 2lb 14oz yellow bombers on a flying green. Derbyshire sneaked the group on shots after lying fourth at the end of game two and progressed to the final.
Green.2. was a much more standard affair. Wales beat South Yorkshire by 17 in the first game with 5 winners and two high scoring losers. Lancashire beat Greater Manchester by 22 due to a big win from Wayne Ditchfield. That set up the two winners playing for the driving seat in the group in game.2. It was Wales who took pole position with a 20 point victory against Lancashire with a 21-7 from Ian Jones settling the tie. South Yorkshire beat Greater Manchester by 18 with a 21-9 card from Jack Wearing.
So in the final game Wales needed to avoid defeat by Greater Manchester with the winner of Lancashire v South Yorkshire hoping for a slip up by Wales that might open the door to an aggregate countback.
South Yorkshire pipped Lancashire by 6 chalks in a tight game, but Wales powered on through to make it three from three…just…beating Greater Manchester by 3 shots thanks to Clay Flattley’s 21-8.
Derbyshire v Wales final and starting on Green No.2, Wales would be looking for a lead to take onto Green No.1. and with a bit of rain in the air it might just die in pace and catch out Derbyshire who had played it at a lightening speed all day.
Clay Flattley stayed on the green he’d just played so well on and lead Wales out against Louie Furniss in the final. Clay recording a 21-17 win. Ed Furniss got revenge for his son with a 21-16 win and with George Hines and Martin Jones playing out a 21-20 slog in favour of the Welshman, that meant it was all square. Derbyshire’s Jack Desmond pinched a few chalks at the end of his match against Andrew Riley to get up to 16 and Derbyshire would be very happy with a 5 chalk deficit going onto Green No.1.
Harry Chapman led out for Derbyshire still clutching the revised 2lb 8oz peanuts against Ian Jones and pulled back the deficit from Green No.2. with a 21-15 win and sent Derbyshire into a single shot lead. But the truth of the matter is that Derbyshire’s Sam Davies, who had been excellent on Green No.1. all day, stole the limelight from Harry as his 21-7 came off the green before Harry and together they took Derbyshire to a 15 shot lead. Dan Hartley played out a close match with Robin Bennett with the Welshman pinching it 21-20, and despite the best efforts of Mark Ball who beat Josh Furniss 21-14, the Supplementary title for 2026 went to Derbyshire by 7 shots.
Calvin Jackson, Derbyshire’s Team Manager for the day, asked Sam Davies to take the trophy on behalf of the County from BCGBA President, Steve Davies, and Patron of the BCGBA Referees Society, Peter Higham. That capped a ‘player of the day’ performance from Sam who won all his matches and scored the pivatol single figure win in the final.
Congratulations to Derbyshire on their second Supplementary win in the last three years, thanks to all at Windle B.C. who looked after everyone so well and to all BCGBA Officials for running the day.
Full results can be found on the Men’s County Championship Competitions Page.