Esclusham Bowling Club

First Season in the East Denbighshire

Amateur Bowling League 1933


Applying for Membership


A meeting of the Executive Committee of the East Denbighshire Amateur Bowling League was held at the Miners’ Institute, Wrexham on Wednesday March 8th 1933 were Mr C H Newton, Gresford, presided. Representatives of the various clubs which comprised the League were present. A letter was read from Esclusham Below Bowling Club, applying for membership. This was deferred for consideration to the annual meeting.


The annual meeting of the East Denbighshire Bowling League was held at the Miners Institute, Wrexham on Saturday 18th March 1933. It was reported that eleven clubs were in membership with the league and that they would run in two sections as last year. The Esclusham Bowling Club were admitted as new members. Twenty five representatives were present at the meeting. It was agreed that the League matches would commence April 22nd 1933 and during the season the league would participate in the County Association competitions and in the North Wales contests.


First League Match


Esclusham’s first match was played in Section two at Llay Welfare on Saturday May 20th 1933. Llay Welfare Reserves won by 87 points. Esclusham had two winners Fred Davies 21 – 17 and Abraham

Pennington 21 – 15.


Abraham Pennington

First Home Game


The first home game against Brymbo Reserves was deferred to Saturday June 3rd 1933 in order to allow the turf to get into good heart and condition. Esclusham had five winners (the best being Charlie Gittens 21 – 6 and Fred Davies 21 – 8) but they still lost by 44 points.

Robert Hughes

Binns Cup


A preliminary round of three matches was played during mid June 1933 by the clubs of the East Denbighshire Amateur Bowling League in connection with the Binns County Cup. Brymbo and Esclusham played at Coedpoeth and the first section team triumphed by 61 points.

George Corfield

First Victory


Esclusham gained their first victory since they joined the league at home on July 8th 1933. Coedpoeth Reserves were the victims, although the dividing margin was only seven.


The best home winners for Esclusham were Fred Davies 21 – 8, Robert Hughes 21 – 10  and Fred Rose 21 – 11.

Thomas W Jones

Home Victories


This was to be the first of four home victories for Esclusham in their first season in the League. The others were against Cefn Co-op Reserves, Parciau Reserves and Llay Welfare Reserves.

Joe Miller

Edwin Jones

Clayton Hughes

Other Match Cards from the 1933 Season


These feature the games against Parciau and Cefn Coop Reserves and are featured below.

End of First Season


On the last day of the season (26th August 1933) Esclusham lost away to Brymbo Reserves.

The final league tables published in late August 1933 saw Esclusham finishing bottom of the second section of the East Denbighshire Amateur Bowling League with 8 points, winning four and losing six of their ten matches. Three other teams finished with the same points total but Esclusham had an inferior match points average.

Final League Tables 1933

First Season Merit Winners


Individual player results have been found for 8/10 league matches played during the 1933 season. From the records at our disposal it would appear that the team individual merit winner was either Fred Davies (played 8, won 6, average + 52) or Fred Rose (played 8, won 5, average + 16)


Players used during the first season: Abraham Pennington, Charlie Gittens, Clayton Hughes, Edwin.Jones, Elvet Jones, Fred Davies, Fred Rose, George Corfield, George Smith, Harry Womack, J.Cooke, J.E.Gilpin, Joe Miller, Joseph Salisbury, M.Jones, Richard Cotton, Robert Hughes, Robert Morris, Sid Haycock, Tom Luke, Thomas Miller and T.W.Jones.