Burnham-On-Sea’s Princess Theatre hosted a unique indoor kurling tournament in memory of a long-time supporter this week.
The Brian Saunders Kurling Cup was held on Thursday December 19th, organised by The Friends Of The Princess.
The annual event at The Princess Theatre is held in memory of Brian Saunders, a local photographer and musical director who introduced kurling in 2013.
Kurling takes place at The Princess Theatre every Thursday from 10.30am to 1.00pm.
A spokesman says: “The group was started by Brian Saunders, who sadly passed away in August 2017 and since then a kurling knock-out competition has been run each year the winner being awarded the Brian Saunders Trophy.”
“The activity is very popular with 21 or more people attending every week so this year the knock-out competition commenced in July 2024 with a match being played each week. The semi finals took place over the last couple of weeks, the finalists played their match on Thursday 19th December.”
“The semi-finals were Hazel Dew v Ian Nield and Rosemary Cooper v Maureen Anderson. Both of the games were closely fought with Ian winning his game with a score of 27 points to Hazel’s 22 points and Rosemary winning her game with a score of 19 points to Maureen’s 18 points.”
“When the final game started to be played the other 25 members of the group stopped playing so everyone could watch Ian and Rosemary fight it out for the trophy. The game was contested over 5 ends with the score to’ing and fro’ing between the two players, the players were separated by just one point after 4 ends.”
“Both players placed their final shots with care as both were keen to win the trophy however, Ian took the game winning by just 2 points. Throughout the competition a note was kept of the contestants scores and the prize for the most points scored in a game was awarded to Cecil Long who had scored an impressive 60 points in one of his games.”
“Julie Hook, the Princess Theatre manager, presented the prizes, with the Brian Saunders Trophy awarded to Ian Nield.”
“A prize was awarded to the runner-up, Rosemary Cooper, and Julie awarded a prize to Cecil Long for an impressive high score.”
Kurling is now finished for 2024 and will return on 2nd January 2025 and during the year the Brian Saunders Trophy will once again be hotly contested.
