Bowls: Mike Bacon and other finalists enjoyed Trinity green in fine shape as it hosted the Sale and District Merit finals.

There were 16 qualifiers from the heats at four other clubs and an excellent standard of bowling, as befits a competition of this quality.

Battling through to the final were Pete Burgess of Cringlewood and Mike Bacon of Fallowfield.

Mike was looking to retain the trophy he won last year and he was also runner-up in 2006. On his way to the final Mike disposed of D Dobson (Roebuck) 21-18, S Davies (Levenshulme) 21-18 and D Horan (Levenshulme) 21-10.

In the other half of the draw, Burgess accounted for fellow Cringlewood star A Garnett 21-19, S Elliott (Brooklands) 21-16 and S Ball (Fallowfield) 21-16.

Mike was always in charge in the final before easing home to keep the cup by a margin of 21-12. Mike is also leading in the division one averages with three weeks to go and has a fine average of 20.92 from 13 games played.

Chasing hard are Levenshulme duo D Clarke and B Holland both on 20-70 with S Ball (Fallowfield) 20.5 and S Delaney (Levenshulme) 20.45 both in the frame.

In division two K Edge (Carrington) has the edge with 20.83 and also with fine scores are A Armsden (Cringlewood B) 20.4, C Graville (Brooklands) 20.27, G McDermott (Nursery) 20.21, P Ford (Pickering) 20.17 and R McGregor (Longford) 20.15.

Lloyds Hotel pulled off their biggest win of the season and took a big step towards winning the Goodies Manchester Premier League with an amazing 12-1, 208-147 win over many-times champions Budenbergs.

Lloyds secretary Steve Ridley ended Andy Cairns’ unbeaten run which won him the league’s Last Man Standing title with a convincing 21-14 success. Making their season’s first appearances were Dave Tonge and Richard Hindley, and they kept up the pressure with wins over Stuart Mort 21-20 and Neil Jenkinson 21-17 respectively.

Other wins came from Billy Hibbert 21-15 v Paul Bailey, Lee Fletcher 21-14 over Grant Soller, Matty Gilmore 21-18 against Dave Hooley and skip Mike Geraghty 21-9 over Geoff Telford.

The lone success for Buds was a 21-19 win by Andy Morrison over Robbie Hall.

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