England’s teams at the World Senior and World Mixed Doubles Championships in Finland had mixed fortunes.

The Senior Men - Michael Sutherland, John Brown, John MacDougall and Robin Gemmell finished up with 4 wins and 4 losses which translated into an overall position of 9th out of the 18 teams competing. This equalled their performance last season, when there were fewer teams playing.

They recorded wins over Norway (5-1), Iceland (8-5), New Zealand (9-6) and Italy (8-6) but lost to Ireland (5-6 after an extra end), Finland (6-7), USA (3-6) and Scotland (2-10).

The Senior Ladies (Glynnice Lauder, Venetia Scott, Joan Reed and Moira Davision) recorded their worst finishing position in the 6 years that they have participated when they ended up 9th out of the 10 teams with only 2 wins, over Japan (12-4) and New Zealand.

In the new discipline of Mixed Doubles there were 28 nations participating and for England’s new representatives, Steve Amann and Jane Clark it was a baptism of fire with their first game coming against Canada, which resulted in a 3-11 defeat. Further defeats against Hungary (2-9), Italy (3-11), Slovakia (5-8) and Sweden (1-12), plus a forfeited game against the USA when Steve was too ill to play, were assuaged by a win over Estonia by 7-5.
The Championships were struck by a variety of illnesses which affected nearly every country in one form or another.