AFTER a six-month campaign which involved six consecutive victories, culminating with a place in the National Finals at Nottingham for the first time in the history of the club, the county town team failed bravely in their attempt to land the coveted trophy against.

Dorchester progressed from local matches in Dorset through to qualifying games across Hampshire, Wiltshire and Kent before achieving the prize of a final.

The team, and a coach-load of supporters, made the near 200-mile journey to the venue at Nottingham Indoor Bowls Club with high hopes of making history for the club, looking for their first national team championship.

However, the game could not have got off to a worse start for the club as the Norfolk team – with the surprising late selection of senior international star Rebecca Field – caught Dorchester cold as they came out of the blocks looking confident and were 43-19 ahead after 90 minutes.

But the Dorchester side then dug in their heels to make a remarkable recovery.

The recovery started on end nine with a magnificent haul of seven shots scored on Jenny Trotman's rink, which was complemented at the same time by a score of four achieved by Jan Cherry, Barbara Redpath and Kay Johns.

Not to be left out of the fightback, Margaret Cullip (Wendy Webb and Linda Hill) posted a similar four count against Brenda Jones on the very next end, as did Chris Jones, Hilary Wilson and skip Ann Kay against Norfolk skip Julie Walmsley, and suddenly Dorchester – against all the odds – had got back to within three shots of their opponents at 62-59.

The match remained tight.

Each time Norfolk eased ahead, Dorchester responded.

Although never ahead overall at any stage of the game, Dorchester refused to concede further ground.

Battling Kay Johns, supported by Jan Cherry and Barbara Redpath had tamed the rink skipped by Field and at the same stage were just two shots down at 13-15, having led their opponent on several occasions during the earlier exchanges.

With victory still a possibility Jenny Trotman, with Jan Meyers and Sue Lofthouse, scored a two and a single, to recover from 18-13 to finish 18-16 down at the hands of Norfolk’s Carol Bardwell.

The fairy tale faded as the other three rinks all dropped shots on the remaining two ends losing 13 shots in the process, allowing the Norwich club to steal the title by a larger margin than they deserved.

* Moonfleet 2000 suffered a harrowing defeat at the hands of former Commonwealth Games silver medallist John Evans.

Evans and his partner Bob Condon thrashed Moonfleet’s pair of Wawrick Brown and Doug Rumble 26-7 at the last 16 stage of the Men’s Over-60 Pairs in the National Indoor Championship.

The duo from Weymouth beat Five Rivers in the first round 20-19 to get to that stage of the competition.