Bowls: High five as Kirkliston retain title

The climax to the second Scottish Inter-County Top Five Singles bowls tournament at Sighthill saw West Lothian representatives Kirkliston retaining the title.

Kirkliston’s “Famous Five” are Raymond Logan, Grant Logan, Greg Logan, John Aitken, and Neil Speirs. Junior cap Calum Logan missed the action as he was on junior international duty with Scotland down at Worthing as West Lothian had excellent wins over Slateford (3-1) in the semi-finals and Lockerbie (3-0) in the final.

The final day’s play was a personal triumph for Greg Logan as the emerging star of the West Lothian bowling scene confirmed his potential with great wins over two international stars in Robert Marshall of Slateford and Ray Graham of Lockerbie. The bowling progress of 32-year-old Greg has been on hold as his earlier years were devoted to a junior football career that saw him win a Scottish Cup medal as a goalkeeper with Linlithgow Rose.

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Andrew Ramsay put Slateford 1-0 up in the semis with a convincing 21-10 win over Raymond Logan. But Neil Speirs (32) inspired the Kirkliston fightback with a 21-18 win over Scott Brunton. Then the focus swung onto the Greg Logan versus Robert Marshall confrontation.

Logan made a spectacular start to lead the Tait Trophy holder 18-4 but was then menaced at 18-16 before conjuring up a magic conversion to hit 21 with a 3. Kirkliston still had a match on their hands at 2-1 up but with Grant Logan and John Aitken batting for them the odds were high that at least one of them would deliver the match-winning third victory.

It was Grant who captured the spotlight in a tense and dramatic match against Dougie Martin as the older of the Logan brothers saw his 20-14 lead come under pressure at 19 before carding the vital single to 21. Aitken was trailing Gordon Ramsay at the time but in touch at 12-15.

The final against a Lockerbie team that beat East Lothian Co-op 3-2 in the semis saw John Aitken beat Richard Linton 21-10, Greg Logan beat Ray Graham 21-9 and Neil Speirs beat Andrew Lauder 21-15 and mean Kirkliston completed a glorious 2011 double having earlier in the season captured the Scottish Top Ten Title.

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