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Last night (Thursday 20th Feb) Shavington was the venue for the John Ford Semi finals. Weaverham acted as home team to Goostrey, and Canute hosted Crosses. Here is a summary of the outcome:
Weaverham fielded their now recognised settled side of Kevin Ashley, Andy Brown, Andrew Lewis Maureen Warburton, Jan Thorpe and Sue Deakin. Goostrey likewise had a settled looking side comprising Jake Hartley, Rob Evans, Carl McGregor-Ogden, Sharon Holford, Pam Jeffs and Meriel Currie. Experience abounded on both teams so we were expecting a close fought encounter. The handicappers felt that was the case and gave Weaverham a small handicap advantage of 16 points. This represents less than a point a game therefore scores of 21-20, 21-19 etc were felt to be the norm. In qames terms Goostrey held sway winning the match conventionally by 13 games to 5, although that is irrelevant in John Ford. Goostrey played very well on the night, whereas Weaverham may have been slightly below par. The scores reflected this in Goostrey taking 334 points to Weaverhams 278. The difference of 56 could not be altered much by the 16 points meaning a 40 point win for Goostrey (2.2 per game - or 21-18 rather than the expected 19 or 20).
In the other semi we had a classic David v Goliath situation. Canute fielded a very strong looking team comprising Mark Henderson, Matt Webber, Phil Wall, Kara Robinson, Rebecca Bailey and Christine Rotherham. Crosses went for an experimental line up of: Ian Brookhouse, Paul Slaughter, Ray Strickson, Symone Dale, Katie Carter and Karen Brookhouse. The handicappers knew that Crosses needed a lot of help and in the end went for 206 points. All of the games went to Canute as expected. That meant a maximum 378 points. The trick for Crosses was to scrape together enough points per game and hope for few errors. Not many were forthcoming. Where the handicapping suggested Crosses needed to reach 9 points a game to have a chance that only happened in 5 games. The sub 9 point games were substantially sub 9 points. In the end Crosses managed 134 points which when added to the handicap became a match total of 340 - still 38 points short (or 2.1 per game). A valiant effort none the less.
All of this means that Canute will face Goostrey in the final on March 13th at Alsager. Thank you Weaverham and Crosses for making it an entertaining evening, congratulations to Goostrey and Canute. Scoresheets attached.