Indoors season cup competitions
The 2024/25 indoors bowling season was an extremely successful one for the Club, since we won the John Ash Trophy, successfully defended our Hamblin Trophy and were double quarter-finalists in the Moreton Cup.
That's a lot of success to live up to; and we'll be doing our level best to do so in the 2025/26 season, bearing in mind that the competition will have improved in the meantime as other Clubs seek to catch us up.
1. The Hamblin Trophy (matches played at Riverside, Winchester, with a Sunday 6.30 start time)
This competition has nine entrants this season, organised in a single league and, owing to the number of rinks available at Riverside (with six rinks, a maximum of three matches at one time), not every team plays every week. This is an open competition for two rinks of four played over 18 ends with two points awarded to the team with the highest aggregate score over both rinks. No finals are scheduled for this season, with the available prize money being distributed to the teams occupying the first four places in the league after the 22 March round of fixtures.
Andover's results and fixtures for this 2025/26 season are as follows, featuring some very tight, low-scoring, attritional games and a couple of nail-biting last-end victories as well as some thumping big wins:
16 Nov: Andover 25 v 24 Fleming Park
30 Nov: Winchester 38 v 33 Andover
7 Dec: Hyde Abbey A 29 v 34 Andover
25 Jan: Andover 26 v 25 Hyde Abbey B
15 Feb: Andover 48 v 19 Hedge End
22 Feb: County/Atherley 15 v 53 Andover
1 Mar: Alton Social 25 v 52 Andover
22 Mar: Littleton v Andover
With now just the one game left to play, Andover sit atop the league. The table after last Sunday's fixtures can be found in the image further down the page. Our final game against Littleton, currently in third place and who have two games left to play, will decide the title. Hyde Abbey A's draw this week takes them out of the equation as, with one game left to play, they are three points behind Andover. Assuming Littleton win their game in hand, they could still pip Andover to the title on shot difference if there is a big enough swing (currently Andover are 30 shots better off). Win our final fixture, though, and we're champions.
2. The Moreton Cup (matches played at Longmeadow, Whitchurch) - 2 teams (Andover Lions & Andover Eagles)
Seventeen teams have entered this year's competition, divided into four groups, three with four teams (in one case with one team having already scratched) and one with five. This is an open competition with no specification as to the composition of the teams. Lions were drawn in Group 2 alongside Atherley, Aldermaston and Kingsclere; while Eagles were matched with Oakley, Yateley and Newbury in Group 3.
The winners and runners up of each group go forward to the quarter finals with the competition then becoming a knockout. Each match takes place over 18 ends with each team constituted of two rinks of four; five points are awarded for each match: two for each winning four and one for the overall highest number of shots.
Here are the fixtures and results, with the points won in the brackets:
Andover Lions
2 Nov: Lions 23 v 42 Oakley (2-3)
30 Nov: Lions 48 v 33 Yateley (5-0)
25 Jan: Lions 41 v 46 Newbury (2-3)
Lions thus qualify for the knockout stage of the competition, finishing in second place behind Oakley. The quarter-final match was played on 1 March against Parkside, who topped a truncated Group 4, with Andover winning a close match by 5 shots over two rinks. The team was: Dave Godfrey, Chris Hewitt, Dave Bradbury and Ray Cozze; and Bill Rawlinson, Linda Sturt, Jenny Guy and Tony Guy. Lions thus play either Kingsclere or Eastleigh Red Devils in the semi-final; match to be played on 15 March. Congratulations everyone; and keep going!
Andover Eagles
19 Oct: Eagles 28 v 34 Atherley (2-3)
23 Nov: Eagles 45 v Aldermaston 27 (3-2)
18 Jan: Eagles 19 v 41 Kingsclere (0-5)
Sadly, Eagles' participation ends at the group stage, while a strong Kingsclere side qualify for the quarter finals.
Full results and fixtures for all the teams in the competition, plus the final league tables ahead of the knock-out stage, can be viewed in the links at the bottom of the page.
3. The John Ash Trophy (matches played at Five Rivers, Salisbury; on 7-8 February)
This is an intense competition taking place over a single weekend, with teams playing four matches on the Saturday afternoon across two rinks; with semi-finals and the final on the Sunday. We won this competition in 2025; and proudly defended our Trophy in 2026.
With some excellent performances in the 2026 competition, we finished top of the standings after day 1, beating Wilton 18-9 (winning one rink 12-3 and drawing the other 6-6), Fordingbridge C 17-10 (winning both rinks 7-5 and 10-5), Alderbury A 36-7 (again winning both rinks 18-4 and 18-3) and Fordingbridge B 29-5 (again, both rinks 11-1 and 18-4). Thus we topped the league without losing a single rink, level on points with Salisbury but with more shots for and a better shot difference - see photos below kindly sent in by team members Jackie Kingston and Mick Corden.
Returning on Sunday morning, the team faced Wilton again in the semi-final, and triumphed 27-12, but unfortunately were not able to overcome Salisbury in the final, Salisbury winning 39-28 across the two rinks. Nevertheless, the team put up a stout defence in representing the Club and, in the process, secured £100 in prize money for Club funds. Congratulations to Salisbury; and well played to all teams who took part.
