First champions of the new season

Filed under: Uncategorized — johnb at 7:46 pm on Monday, October 13, 2008

The first two English Championships were decided at the weekend in Kelso.

Glendale retained their Inter-Club title with 4 wins out of 4 over Preston and London, Preston were second with 2 wins and London finished winless. Glendale will now represent England in the RCCC Province Championship at Greenacres between the 14th and 16th November.

SCORES

Glendale beat Preston 7-5 and 7-1

Glendale defeated London 9-6 and 8-7

Preston defeated London 12-4 and 7-6

MIXED DOUBLES

Four pairs contested the second ECA Mixed Doubles Championship with the prize being a trip to the World Championships in Cortina, Italy in April 2009. With the reigning champions unable to enter owing to a clash between the World Mixed Doubles and World Seniors Championships, there was the chance for new players to come forward.

After 2 games for each team in the round robin format, each had won one game and so the last round robin games became, in essence, semi-finals as the two winners would go on to contest a final tie-breaker. And both ’semi-finals’ were thrillers which went to an extra end before John Sharp and Jane Clark came through to meet Alastair Fyfe and Debbie Hutcheon.

The final could have been over as early as the second end as Alastair Fyfe had a shot for the maximum score of 6, which would have put them 7-0 up. Unfortunately for him he missed and John and Jane then knew that they had been let off the hook and they would not be given such a break again. It turned out to be a close final all the way through and was only settled at the very end when John promoted one of his own stones in for second shot to snatch victory by 7-6.

The World Championships will be both players’ second representative appearance for England. Jane played in the World Mixed Doubles last year when she and Steve Amann were called up to take the place of the Champions who were unable to play, while John was a late substitute for Andrew Reed at the latest European Mixed Championships. So this time they are there in their own right and we wish them well.

Scores

Alastair Fyfe / Debbie Hutcheon 8, Susan Young / James Gibb 7 (after extra end)
Steve Scanlan / Sandra Moorcroft 8, John Sharp/ Jane Clark 7

Young / Gibb 6, Scanlan / Moorcroft 4

Sharp / Clark 9, Fyfe / Hutcheon 5

Sharp / Clark 8. Young / Gibb 6 (after extra end)

Fyfe / Hutcheon 6, Scanlan / Moorcroft 5 (after extra end)

FINAL - Sharp / Clark 7, Fyfe / Hutcheon 6

ENGLISH CURLING ASSOCIATION Annual General Meeting

Filed under: Uncategorized — johnb at 8:49 pm on Wednesday, May 7, 2008

The Annual General Meeting of the ECA will be held in the VIP restaurant of the Don Valley Stadium Sheffield on Sunday 8th June at 2 pm.

All members of the ECA are welcome to attend.

Directions to the venue can be found here:

http://www.donvalleystadium.co.uk/pages/129/banqueting.html

Death of Connie Miller

Filed under: Uncategorized — johnb at 9:19 pm on Tuesday, February 19, 2008

CONNIE MILLER

One curler who was closely associated with the growth of English Ladies curling, including the formation of the ECA Ladies branch, was Connie Miller who skipped the English ladies to a bronze meal at the 1976 European Championships.

Connie was 100 last November but unfortunately she died last week and I am grateful to Christine Black for her thoughts on Connie.

“Constance Dorothy Miller was born in Shrewsbury and went to school in Sevenoaks (strange that curling is now taking place not a million miles away at Fentons! ) On leaving School she went to Oswestry Hospital to train as a Physiotherapist and it was there that she met her future husband Alexander (Sandy) Miller who was an orthopaedic surgeon. After they were married they went to live in Glasgow where Sandy introduced Connie to curling! Sandy was a good curler but in a very short time, Connie surpassed him. She was a member of Glasgow Ladies and won many competitions and trophies. She went on one of the earliest tours of the Ladies? Branch across the Pond.

Sadly, Sandy died in 1954 and in the 60s Connie moved back to England to help her sister Muriel (Mu) to look after their aged parents who lived in the Isle of Wight. When they died, Connie bought a house in Sidlesham in Sussex and Mu moved in with her. With all the Surrey and Sussex farmers living nearby and curling thriving at Richmond Connie soon brought her expertise to bear and was the only female member of the Province of London who was allowed to skip!!!

When a team from Preston entered the European Championhsips in 1976, it was necessary to find a ladies’ team to go as well. Connie bravely rose to the challenge and took three very raw members (in terms of big competitions) with her to Berlin. The rest is history as Connie’s rink came home with a bronze medal. Connie was a scatterbrain and contrived to leave her handbag on the bus that took us to the airport for the return flight and it was left to the then President of the Ladies’ Branch of the Royal Club, Chris Gardiner, to bring it back!

On frequent trips to Stranraer, she was to be found reading the wrong signs on loo doors and going into the gents! We had lots of fun times with her and she had a marvellous talent for a total recall of games, shots etc. that she or her rink had played going back years. She was truly a marvellous skip but sadly, she was unable to pass on her wonderful knowledge to others as she would have been a great coach. “

I only played with Connie once, during my first experience of English curling at Streatham Ice Rink in 1982, when she was a sprightly 75! Like most young men I was aghast when I was told in no uncertain terms that an elderly lady would be my skip that night but it soon became apparent that she was no fool and we won quite comfortably.

The funeral will not be held for a week or so as mambers of her family are abroad but I will post details here id anybody is interested.
_________________
John M L Brown
Secretary
English Curling Association

ECA NEWSLETTER PUBLISHED

Filed under: Uncategorized — johnb at 9:41 pm on Thursday, November 29, 2007

ECA Newsletter, November 2007

Stephen Hinds, Director of Development of the ECA has produced the first of a new series of ECA newsletters. It is over 3 years since the first series of newsletters stopped being published after 21 issues in 14 years.

Access it by clicking on the link above.

 

 

SANDY BLAIR

Filed under: Uncategorized — johnb at 10:42 am on Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Sandy Blair, President of the English Curling Association between 1982 and 1985, died last week after a long illness. His funeral will take place at Garston Crematorium, Watford on 16th April at 2 pm.

Sandy was a member of the London Northerners club and was President as England began to make its presence felt on the World stage with increasing success at European Championships (5th in 1984) and qualification for the World Championship (1985). It was with great pride that he led the English team at those World Championships in the Kelvin Hall, Glasgow, the city where his ancestors had been in the forefront of curling.

LAUNCH OF ENGLISH CURLING FORUM

Filed under: Uncategorized — johnb at 10:39 pm on Thursday, March 29, 2007

Two members of the South of England Curling Club, Steve Scanlan and Gordon Bryan have set up a website at http://www.englishcurlingforum.com/ to enable curlers all over England to chat to each other on a variety of topics. The ECA is happy to see this site being launched and hope all curlers in England will use it to contact others and discuss the hot topics in curling today. There is also an area where it is posible to contact other curlers if you are looking for a team for a competition.