The 2009 ECBA Rinks (Fours) was held at Braintree Leisure Centre and was organised by Essex C.B.A on behalf of the ECBA.

A total of 40 pairs were entered for the competition and although the majority of teams were local, there was one noteable entry from the former winners Glendale/Lindisfarne, who had travelled all the way down from Northumberland to take part.

For the Round Robin stage the entrants played in 8 groups of 5 teams, with the top 2 teams from each group qualifingy for the knockout stages. The First Round of games would see with each of the group winners playing against a runner-up.

Such were the results from the First Round that the Quarter Finals saw the Winners and Runners-Up from groups 1, 3, 5 & 8 all playing one another for the second time in the day, although this time around only two of the group winners, Feering Blue 2 and Kelsale, would progress, while Roxwell 2 and Langham who had finished second in their respective groups made it through to play one another in the second Semi-Final.

There was never much between Feering and Kelsale in their Semi which eventually went the way of Kelsale 7-5, while in the other game Langham came back from dropping 4 shots on the first end to take a relatively comfortable 11-6 win over Roxwell.

The Final was a close fought affair with Kelsale starting out by taking a single shot to lead after the first end, Langham immediatley responded with 2 on the second and edged out to a 5-2 lead after 5 ends. Kelsale brought the score back to 5-4 with one end to go, but Langham took the final end by the narrowest of margins to take the title with a 6-4 win.

You can find a list of the past winners here.

updated 14th April 2009