The millennium saw Durham County finally get it’s hands on the Holy Grail of outdoor bowls – the Middleton Cup. Through the years former great players like Willie Watson, Danny Bell, Mal Hughes, Tommy Buller, George Turley and the Lambert brothers were all part of squads that had tried but just couldn’t bring the cup back north. The outdoor county’s inability to win the national county championship was all the more inexplicable given the fact that Durham had dominated the equivalent indoor event winning the Liberty Trophy six times in 16 years between 1983-1998. In fact for the talent available the outdoor record was abysmal, there first appearance in the final was in 1938 when they were beaten by Dorset and it would take another 34 years for the only other final appearance in 1972, sadly they were bridesmaids again going down 128-104 to Surrey, in total Durham have been beaten semi finalists on four other occasions 1976,1980,1982 and 1991 and it looked like it would never happen so how ironic it was that Durham became the first millennium winners.
In an attempt to break the hoodoo the county appointed the much respected Hartlepool international Cliff Simpson as team manager, during the season Simpson put together what on paper wasn’t the best Middleton cup team but the squad clicked and during the Northern Counties Muras Trophy campaign they built up a great team spirit and built up some momentum which saw them qualify from the Northern Group and into the last eight where they would face Derbyshire on a neutral green at Kingston Upon Hull. Before a bowl was bowled in the quarter final tie Durham’s hopes were hanging by a thread, traffic problems on the notorious York ring road saw a car full of Durham players delayed and were still twenty minutes away at the set start time, at one point it looked like the county president and match officials were going to have to play, however after a discussion between both sets of officials and the match umpires it was agreed to delay the start with a lot of credit going to the opposition in agreeing to the delay, in the end Durham went onto win by single figures and book a semi final place at the then Mecca of bowls Worthing plus a seven hour coach trip.
Third row – D.Livingston, J.Leeman, C.Jefferson, J.Pearce, A.Kirtland, R.Robinson, P.Baker, B.Arkley, R.Mckie, S.Johnston
Second Row (all County Officials) – K.Sykes, F.Johnson (County Secretary), L.Parnell (Junior Vice President), D.Draper (England Selector), J.Laidler, R.Mason, G.Charlton
Front Row – W.Condron, G.Peacock, C.Simpson (Team Manager), C.McCain (County President), G.Stewart (Senior Vice President), E.Henry, B.Jones, A.Jobling. – (squad member not at Worthing S.Morland)
The semi final line up at Worthing saw Durham face Devon while favourites Norfolk tackled Warwickshire with the final expected to be a Devon-Norfolk affair. Durham were the only one of the four counties still playing in the traditional all white while opponents Devon sported a Carlisle football type of design from the seventies. Devon had several past and present England players in there line up, for example leading against Silksworth’s Keith Avery was one Robert Paxton the now current World Indoor Singles Champion. It was an early start on a glorious morning and the Durham lads put in a storming team performance winning on four of the six rinks plus draw’s on the other two which saw them home 121-105, the other semi final saw Norfolk beat Warwickshire 125-106.
So to the final, Norfolk had placed their faith in experience fielding five players who had made more than 100 Middleton Cup appearances with several more well on the way to becoming centurions compared to a Durham team that had several who were at Worthing for the first time in their careers.
The final was a classic encounter with the lead changing hands that many times that the spectators lost count. Despite only winning on two of the six rinks the Durham fairytale had a happy ending. White-le-head’s Chris Palmers rink of Clavering’s Brett Arkley, Silksworth’s Paul Baker and Barnes Park’s Stevie Johnston picked shots up for fun in a stunning 34-14 win over one of Norfolk’s big name players former England star David Ward, that win coupled with Darlington RA’s Andrew Kirtland’s 27-20 win over Trevor Webb left Norfolk looking for 27 shots from the other four rinks. They found sixteen of them when Bob Thacker beat former England international John Leeman 27-11 but the remaining three Durham rinks held on for a historic 123-117 win and a first Middleton Cup success.
Clavering’s Alan Theobald always dreamt of playing the final bowl to win the Middleton Cup, with the game already won Theobald got his wish although the majority of the Durham team didn’t see where his final bowl ended up as the celebrations had already started in the middle of the green as Theobald’s bowl wandered up the green for shot.
2025 Update…..
Looking back as mentioned in the report was it the best ever Durham Middleton Cup team…. the honest answer would be probably not however they just got on a roll during the Muras campaign and the confidence just grew and grew until the dream became a reality.
Sadly since that memorable day we have lost a few from the party, on the playing side we have sadly lost Spennymoor legend Billy Condron. From the officials side of it we have said goodbye to Les Parnell (Junior Vice President), Don Draper (England Selector), Jimmy Laidler (Treasurer), Ray Mason and George Charlton plus the then County President Charlie McCain.
Saturday 26 August 2000 will be a date etched in many a player, official and spectators memory – a day….. No in fact a weekend! …. that will be forever remembered.