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 (a maximum of three), 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:

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 v Hyde Abbey B

15 Feb: Andover v Hedge End

22 Feb: County/Atherley v Andover

1 Mar: Alton Social v Andover

22 Mar: Littleton v Andover

After the Christmas break, and with no fixture in either of the first two rounds of 2026, Andover currently sit in second with two wins and a loss and a marginally positive shot difference of 92-91. The current table (as of the 7 December round) can be found in the links at the bottom of the page.

 

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 have been drawn in Group 2 alongside Atherley, Aldermaston and Kingsclere; while Eagles are 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 v Newbury

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, with a very strong Kingsclere side who thus qualify for the quarter finals.

Full results and fixtures for all the teams in the competition, plus all the league tables, 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; with semi-finals and the final on the Sunday. We won this competition in 2025; and will be proudly defending our Trophy in 2026.

We are looking for ten players to represent Andover Bowling Club - let men's team captain Gordon Bazley know via the usual routes if you wish to participate; but please only sign up if you can do the whole weekend.