The Quarterman Memorial Cup – 19 July 2026

Supporting Headway Hertfordshire

The gorgeously sunny day saw 10 Hertfordshire triples battle this out for the chance of immortality. Amongst the star-studded field were last year’s champions, Tony, Jan and Jeanette and this year’s Barnet League champions, Barry, Val and Darren.

The stage was set for some great competitive bowling but, this being a Charity Event, the spanner in the works was thrown in by our Organiser, Jeff, in that each time the block in the middle was hit, the offender would donate 50p to the Charity.  Bearing in mind that there would be 7 sessions of 6 ends, followed by two semi-finals and the final, that would mean that 2,736 woods will be bowled today. Alan Hare, bless him, decided he would get ahead of the game and donated a fiver to allow him to hit the block 10 times from his minimum of 72 woods – he actually hit it only twice so thank you Alan for the donation! The result of this and the highest blocker hitter will follow this report.

Alice and John from Headway were present the whole day and they were impressed, quite rightly, from the very high standard in front of them and, as a neutral observer, so was I. The day was fabulous, with Hertfordshire’s team spirit and camaraderie well to the fore. After everyone had played 7 games, the scores were totted up, and the semi-final line up was as follows: -

Barry, Val and Darren B            vs           Trevor, Michelle and Neil R

Tony, Paul and Julia                   vs           Mike E, Mick T and Margaret E

Close fought and exceptional bowling later and we had our finalists: -

Barry, Val and Darren B            vs           Tony, Paul and Julia        

The Barnet League form was upheld seeing Greenwood, in their new striking shirts, being victorious. Well done to the Green Trio!

Back to the even more exciting “Who can Hit the Block the Most” competition and the winner was Marilyn who outstandingly hit it 7 times! However, the more interesting fact was that it was hit only 60 times over the whole day which means that only 2.19% of all bowls bowled, ended up hitting the block. Pretty damn good all round!

Finally, the money raised total. £117 from the raffle, £45 from cake purchases, £45 from block hitting and £132 from anonymous doners (you know who you are and will be rewarded in the afterlife). Total raised £339 and a cheque for this amount was handed over to John from Headway by our Chairman Darren Brown.

Well done everyone who made the day great (especially Jeff who ran it like clockwork) and let’s do it again soon.