World bowls finalist Janice Gower delighted to have done Blackpool club proud

It was another highly successful championship for the Newton Hall club in Staining: besides Janice finishing runner-up, her clubmate and 2018 world champion Mark Dawes again reached the last eight of the open singles.

Janice, 47, told The Gazette: “I’m just settling down back home again. I’d been away for three weeks. I took part in the Champion of Champions’ event in Portsmouth after the worlds and now I’m getting ready for the Nationals next month.

“January to March are the silly months in this sport if you’re successful. You just go from game to game.”

Success is nothing new for Janice, a former national champion, European number one and England international. But her recent achievement at Hopton-on-Sea was extra-special. “The World Championships were fantastic for me, my best ever,” she recalls.

“I may have not have won, but when you go into the club and people give you big hugs and remind you that you were in a world final, you really do start to think, ‘Wow, that’s a big thing for a female from up north.’

Defending champion Julie Forrest was just too strong on the day, winning the final by two sets to nil, but it’s only natural for Janice to consider what might have been.

“Had I held on to win the first set it would have guaranteed me a tie-break at least.

“I was holding the first set with just one bowl left for Julie, but she scraped through and then was outstanding in the second set. As I said on the day, I lost count of the number of times I said, ‘Good bowl, Julie’ in that second set.

“You always wonder if you could have played better but I learned a great deal. It was my first world final, with all the BBC razzmatazz. I’d been part of it on the press side but not as a player and I take loads of positives from it.”

While continuing with her media work, Janice has stepped back from the England scene to concentrate on her individual bowling goals.

But she will never forget that she remains very much part of a team at Blackpool Newton Hall.

Janice added: “Mark played his quarter-final straight after my final, so it was a Blackpool afternoon on the television.

“He was so supportive of me, even though he had his own big match to worry about, so it shows what a close-knit club we are.

“The club is in pretty good shape and everyone feels part of what Mark and I have achieved.

“It’s really touching when people come up to you in the club and say you’ve made them proud.”