The Balbardie IBC banner has a presence in the Finals of the Scottish Seniors Championships being played at Midlothian over this weekend with Betty Johnston and Margo Duff bidding for national title glory in the Ladies Pairs.
Read MoreThe star duo from the Bathgate based club line up against the West of Scotland partnership of Agnes Fitzpatrick and Annette Christie in the semi finals with the winners going on to face Ayr or Garioch in Sundays final.
Dreams of Scottish Cup glory for the gents of West Lothian IBC are over with the six times winners crashing out to a defeat from East Lothian in their recent second round clash at neutral venue Dalkeith. Whilst the match was a hard fought affair for most of the time the result goes on points and West Lothian only managed to grab 3 to the 7 of East Lothian.
East Lothian are record seven times winners of The Scottish Cup and this latest clash between two giants of the Premier League saw West Lothian’s only success achieved by icon figure Neil Speirs. Speirs skipped his rink to a good win over former Under 25 world singles champion Joe Mower while Calum Logan finished all square with Scott Kennedy however Thomas Mann lost to Alex Marshall MBE; and Mark Allison to Billy Mellors.
Scotland’s heartbreaking single shot defeat from England (120-119) was inflicted upon them by the loss of a last end double and it robbed them of capturing the British Isles International Crown in the series played at Paisley IBC. Wins over Ireland (135-93) and Wales (148-93) set up the head to head winner takes all clash against England and the epic encounter that followed saw Scotland lead 114-108 after 19 ends; but the defending champions rallied with a count of 9-0 to cross 117-114 then a 6-2 fight back by the Scots just fell agonisingly short. The Scottish team included two West Lothian IBC stars in the shape of Mark Allison and Neil Speirs – playing second and third to Martin McCalley (Falkirk) and Iain McLean (Blantyre) – and they finished the top Scots rink with 3 wins out of 3 and a plus of 49 shots.