Buckley is the master

WINNER: ANDREW BUCKLEY

ANDREW BUCKLEY picked up £1,000 and gave himself the perfect confidence boost for an even bigger challenge ahead when he clinched the Spen Masters at Cleckheaton on Saturday night.

The Nimble Nook star landed the big Yorkshire prize with a 21-18 final victory over player-of-the-season Graeme Wilson, the Audenshaw-based Yorkshireman.

And his success has put him in a positive frame of mind for his last-64 clash with Failsworth’s Lee Lawton, another of the game’s top players, in the Waterloo Handicap in Blackpool on Saturday. The competition reaches its conclusion next Wednesday.

Buckley defeated Brian Duncan, the sport’s all-time number one, in the last 16 at Spen, but admitted he was lucky to scrape through 21-18.

“It was the worst game you have seen,” he admitted. “I was spraying them yards off with my yellow bowls, so I changed back to my others after that game and made the improvement I needed.”

A 21-18 defeat of Sheffield’s Chris Kelly followed in the quarter-finals, the stage at which his Nook team-mate and best friend Darren Griffiths fell 21-19 to Wilson.

Buckley beat Huddersfield’s Paul Sigsworth 21-19 in the semi-finals and landed the first prize by overcoming Wilson in a tense final.

“It was particularly satisfying to beat him in his own back yard with all the crowd shouting for him,” admitted Buckley, whose victory earned him an invitation to next month’s Oceanico Masters on Portugal’s Algarve.

More immediately, crown green bowling’s most prestigious title in Blackpool is in Buckley’s sights, but he knows the challenge ahead.

“I play Lee first, but Gary Ellis and Simon Coupe (winner and runner-up last year) are also in my section, so it will be tough.”

Buckley’s victory at Spen came hot on the heels of success in the Huntley Unionist Club Open in Bury.

And his return to top form clearly indicates that he is finally overcoming the hip problems which have dogged him in recent years.

An operation aimed at curing the injury failed to work, so a full hip replacement was needed.

“It is getting better,” said Buckley. “The thing which helped most was the physio I did for a couple of months. Although that is finished I still have to do my daily exercises.”