Battle on for prestigious Burton Cup lawn bowls in Gisborne

The 116-year-old Burton Cup is up for grabs at Gisborne Bowling Club this weekend.

Gisborne’s run of bowling highlights continues this weekend with the district’s most storied bowls competition, the Burton Cup.

Play starts at 9am on Saturday and Sunday on the Gisborne Bowling Club greens.

A full field of 16 four-member teams, each of whom must have at least one male and one female, will play three 90-minute rounds on both days.

All teams are local, although some might include guest players, and teams can be made up of players from different clubs.

Tournament controller Peter Ferris said last year’s Burton Cup winners were back – with one change in personnel – and “some very good teams” would line up against them.

The “classic fours” format meant all members of teams played all four disciplines – singles, pairs, triples and fours – during the tournament.

The Burton Cup was donated by Mr EW Burton and first contested in 1910.

When the tournament was shelved in 2017 because of lack of interest, the trophy was given to Gisborne Bowling Club for safekeeping.

Burton was a member of the club and had entrusted its committee with the conduct of the competition.

Traditionally the Burton was an Easter tournament, but over several years preceding 2017 it had struggled to attract an entry of 14 teams.

Efforts to reinvigorate the Burton included the admission of women as participants, a change in format from fours to triples and the shifting of the tournament to summer months.

Factors counting against the Burton had been the emergence of competing events in other centres and a growing reluctance among players to take part in tournaments of more than two days’ duration.

For most of its history, the Burton Cup was a male-only fours competition that started on Good Friday and sometimes did not finish until Tuesday afternoon.

Entries of over 70 teams were a feature of the Burton in the late 1970s and early 80s.

The Burton Cup was an annual fixture, continuing through two world wars without missing a beat. Weather stopped two Burtons before they started – in 1982 and 2012.

Through the 1990s and 2000s, Burton entries fell away, until the decision not to hold the 2017 tournament was made at the annual meeting of the district bowls centre.

Since then it has been revived as a marquee event for Gisborne Bowling Club and enjoyed a resurgence of interest, albeit at a lower level than during its heyday.