🎩 Hook Hares vs St Mary Bourne Merlins
Whitchurch & District Bowling League – Division 3   Return Match – 9th July 2025
Venue: Hook Bowling Club
Ah, what a glorious evening it was at Hook Bowling Club — a setting fit not for mere sport, but for drama, poetry, and the subtle theatre of competition. As the Hook Hares welcomed the St Mary Bourne Merlins onto their immaculately trimmed green, one could sense that this would be no ordinary affair. It was a return fixture. A reckoning. A rematch worthy of the grand stage… or at the very least, a mention in the club newsletter.
Team Line-Ups
Hook Hares
Rink 1
Skip: Mike Draper
Number 2: Martyn Kee
Lead: Tim Shenton-Taylor
Rink 4
Skip: Campbell Williams
Number 2: Paul Cary
Lead: Mick Poulter
Rink 5
Skip: Jez Wilkinson (making his league debut as skip)
Number 2: Albert Johnson
Lead: Ken Hawkins
St Mary Bourne Merlins
(Names not recorded — they were too busy chasing our bowls around the jack!)
But they fielded three brave triples and one daring skip with a flair for jack-nudging theatrics…
Rink 1 – A Glorious Lead… Until It Wasn’t
Final Score: Merlins 20 – Hares 15
Our gallant trio — Mike, Martyn and Tim — had it all under control. After 11 ends, they were holding five shots, which would have given them a 3 shot lead. Five! That's enough to cause small celebrations and whispered mentions of post-match pub stops. But as the poet Heraclitus said, “No man ever steps in the same river twice,” and no end in bowls ever ends quite as expected.
The Merlins' skip, with all the serenity of a monk in a thunderstorm, sent down one bowl that gently nudged the jack — and turned triumph into tragedy. They stole four shots from the jaws of a Hare victory. A moment worthy of match folklore, if not a slow-motion replay.
Rink 4 – A Bowling Clinic from Williams & Co.
Final Score: Hares 26 – Merlins 11
What Campbell, Paul, and Mick delivered was less a match and more a public demonstration. A performance so polished, they may well be charged with causing green envy.
Three ends of four shots, a five for good measure, and such relentless precision, even the bowls seemed to hum with satisfaction. As Winston Churchill once said, “To each, there comes in their lifetime a special moment…” This was not just a moment — it was an exhibition.
Rink 5 – The Comeback of the Season
Final Score: Hares 20 – Merlins 13
Let us pause a moment for Jez, Albert and Ken. For after ten ends, trailing 13–6, they were knee-deep in trouble. Spectators began whispering condolences. The scorecard began to look like an obituary. And then… the bowls began to listen.
Eight ends later, every single one won, including a magnificent four-shot turnaround — and Jez had announced his arrival as skip with a debut for the ages. As Ralph Waldo Emerson might’ve said had he taken up bowls: “Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path, and leave a trail — preferably straight to the jack.”
Final Score
Hook Hares: 61
St Mary Bourne Merlins: 44
Match Points: Hook Hares 4 – Merlins 1
One lost rink, two commanding wins, and one comeback of almost operatic grandeur. The Merlins may have conjured magic on rink one, but the Hares took the match — and the glory — home.
Closing Reflections
As the green settled into silence, and drinks were  poured in the clubhouse with reverence (and perhaps the odd cheeky packet of crisps consumed), one could not help but reflect on the grace of the game. Lawn bowls — it does not shout. It does not swagger. But it lingers in the memory like a well-told tale or the echo of laughter after dusk. And as the twilight kissed the green, the bowls whispered tales of battles won and friendships forged — a gentle reminder that on this sacred turf, every roll is a step in the dance of sport and spirit.