Three Beccles indoor bowlers have tasted National Championship success.

Graham Catchpole, David Wood and Mark Todd have been playing qualifying matches all season to reach the England National Bowls Finals. Playing in the Over-50 Triples competition they reached the finals played at Northampton on February 15 and 16.

At the finals they had to play two four-hour matches each day. After knocking out Sutton (Surrey) 17-10 and White Oak (Kent) 14-12 they had to face the winners from 2008-09, Nottingham, in the semi-final.

This was a hard fought game with a very high standard of bowls played throughout, which was appreciated by the large number of spectators. The game went down to the last wood with Beccles winning 17-16.

In the final Beccles had to play York and were behind 12-5 in the first half.

They had to work hard to get back on to level terms and with one end left to play, Beccles had a three-shot lead. In the last end Beccles thought they had it won, still holding their lead and with York having only one wood left it looked good – but the York skip fired just catching the jack and sending it flying out of rink.

The end had to be started again, this time Beccles held on winning the game 20-15 – finally after four hours play and finishing at 10.20pm Beccles became English National Champions.

Wood and Catchpole have also qualified for the Over-60 Pairs Finals, held next month at Melton Mowbray.