Bowls: All-East Lothian World Singles title goes to Paul

Paul FOSTER emerged as the winner of the all-East Lothian clash for the World Indoor Singles title at Great Yarmouth, chalking up his fourth win in the event since his initial victory at Preston in 1998 and bridging a six-year gap since his third victory in 2005.

However, the only flaw in that outcome was that he had to pick up that title to the detriment of his best friend Alex Marshall, a record five time winner of the crown, to pocket the 40,000 record prize purse.

Foster and Marshall have been the closest of buddies for more than a decade now, and between them have a wealth of titles at every level of the sport, either won together or individually. However, this final was the first time they had gone head to head for a major - and in the Potters arena where neither of them had ever lost a world singles title final.

In their pre-match televised interview, Tranent ace Marshall thought the title would be decided on a tie break while Foster predicted that he would win the opening set and draw the second to take the title, and in the end it was Foster who amazingly made the correct forecast, winning 11-5, 8-8.

Indeed, after their epic semi-final exchanges the previous day, where Foster played like a machine and hardly put a foot wrong to destroy world No.?3 Mark Royal 10-3, 9-2, and Marshall battled to deny world No.?2 and defending champion Greg Harlow to win 9-6, 5-7, 2-1, the final was a pretty tame affair, with both players readily admitting that they never realised their potential.

Taxi proprietor Foster, 37, who lives in Troon, made all the running in the opening set, going 5-0 ahead after just two ends and carried that cushion for the remainder of the set when he scored a double to take the count 11-5 with an end to spare.

Marshall, 43, a sales manager for the Henselite bowling company, got a better start in the second, and went 6-1 ahead after five of the 11 ends and the match looked to be heading to a best of three end tie break when he held sway at 8-4 with two ends remaining.

However, Foster stormed back notching up doubles on each end to square the set at 8-8 which was good enough for him to win the title by one and a half sets to a half.

Foster said: "It's the icing on the cake for me, particularly after Alex and I won our first pairs title last week. That boosted both our confidences as we embarked on the singles, and I know we got through a lot of touch matches to get here."

Marshall though will look back on the vital last bowl of the match and wonder what could have been.

Needing shot or second shot to take the match to a best of three shoot out, Marshall's last delivery was interrupted by a rinkside camera man who began talking as he was on the mat ready to deliver and he had to regroup, where his final bowl fell agonisingly short of the target.