BANISTER PARK handed out a beating to reigning champions Victory on the opening day of the Hampshire Inter-club Leag-ue season.

Although their margin of success was only ten shots, Banister Park took the contest 6.5-1.5 on points in a tight match where three of the rinks were decided by two shots or less.

The rinks of Ken Marsh and Geoff Earle were the heroes for the Eastleigh club, Marsh gaining the one clear-cut verdict of the day by beating Lenny Compton 22-13.

Roy Alford went down by a single shot to Adrian Ash while Denny Graydon finished all square with his Victory opponent.

Palmerston, who made the running early last season, could well be setting the pace again if their 7-1 eclipse of Atherley is any guide while another eye-catching result was the 7-1 triumph by Loddon Vale over East Dorset.

The only 8-0 whitewash came from Havant against Chawton Park.

In the first round of the English Indoor BA singles Allan Arnaud (Atherley) fell 21-5 to R Hindley who now meets his Five Rivers colleague Dennis Shipp, a 21-13 winner against Arthur Fagg (Bournemouth).

Micky Barrett (Atherley) was pipped 21-20 by Chris Mcmillan (East Dorset) but former national singles champion Andy Ross (Longmeadow) had little difficulty ousting D Chapman (Bourne-mouth) 21-8.

East Dorset's Morgan namesakes powered through, Russell beating Bob Stoneham (Atherley) 21-8 and Dean knocking out Derek Ames (Dolphin) 21-17. Ted Everist was another Atherley casualty falling on his home carpet to Ron Porter (Dolphin) 21-8 while in the mixed pairs Clive Tancock and Maggie Wright (Atherley) bowed out 30-8 to Bill and Ruby Owen (Dolphin).

The mixed Atherley and Banister Park side were no match for Wey Valley in the national under-25 double rink championship, the Surrey side winning 76-25. Antony Nixon's foursome from Banister lost 39-13 to national senior singles semi-finalist Chris Young and Lee Savage's quartet went down 37-12.

Palmerston's season of friendlies continued with their fifth successive victory.

This time their men swamped Adur 146-125, the Fareham club's top winning rink being the four of Bill Sprague, Bob Lacey, Bill Jackson and skip Ian Chittenden who beat their Sussex opponents by 13 shots.

Converted for the new archive on 25 January 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.