Bowls round-up: Millward needs a Potteries Panel win as Wraight rules over Bandit Bowls again

A finalist last winter, the Wrockwardine Wood man travels to round eight at the Railway Inn at Congleton on Thursday night knowing he can’t afford to lose to Andy Hush.

One win from his three games to date means Millward is languishing low down in the 24-man table and likely to need to go through the play-off process to qualify for next month’s finals night.

Table-topper Callum Wraight faces Ian Homer on what’s billed as a big grass green while Dan Williams meets Mark Hill and Joe Dicken takes on Darren Beardmore.

Week seven at Alsager saw Alex Hassall beat Mark Lunn 29-9 but lose to Darren Kerr 23-17, while Andy Armstrong had a bad night as he went down 26-17 against Aaron Jones and 24-14 versus Josh Towey to slip to ninth place.

Wraight retains Bandit Bowls points crown

Winter or summer, Callum Wraight reigns over Shropshire bowls.

The Shrewsbury king retained the Bandit Bowls winter series points champion tag when he rounded off another cracking campaign at round 20 on Sunday at Adderley.

The 38-year-old Castlefields star topped his 13-up round robin group yet again, the 16th time he had done so this winter, to finish with 54 wins from a total of 57 games and be 35 points clear at the top of the final table.

And that means Wraight will be a red-hot favourite to be crowned overall champion again on a Bandit Bowls grand finals day with a total prize fund of £4,500 on March 30.

Also successful at Adderley were high-flyers Daz Fielding, John Lea, Graham Rogers, Lee Walmsley, Cedric Bancroft, Gus Needham, Terry Howard, Phil Jones (Nantwich), Peter Grimston and Jan Wakefield as 22 groups catered for 91 competitors.

Last-gasp wins by series newcomers Chris Dodds, Paul Beer and Dan Corbett, plus Michelle Nolan, Sue Conneely and Josh Cotton secured their top 40 places in the points table to earn tickets to the grand finals.

But Adderley group winners Alison Cotton, Emmet McKinley and Mark Holden look set to miss out and successes for Brian Whitehouse and Andy Riley came too late.

Late blow for Wem League

A late blow for the Wem Bowling League will be confirmed at its pre-season executive meeting on Thursday.

Club delegates at Old Shrewsbury BC (7.30pm start) will hear that a team has pulled out since the 2025 fixtures were published.

“Unfortunately Hadnall B team resigned from division two of the league and this leaves us with two top divisions of 10 and two of 12,” said league secretary Graham Hughes. “The main reason for the meeting is to issue clubs with scorecards and result cards, so there is a limited agenda.

"I am hoping to make an announcement regarding sponsorship of the league in the near future.”