Devon Cricket Board - Charity match raises £1300 for ELF

Charity match raises £1300 for ELF

FRIENDS and former team-mates of cricketer Gary Bowles raised more than £1,300 by playing in his memory
Bowles, who was 45, died in December last year after a long battle against leukaemia.
For three years Bowles was treated by a specialist unit in Exeter and worked with the Exeter Leukaemia Fund, a charitable organisation working with patients.
It was the ELF who benefited from money raised by the game between the Old Malburians and Slapton CC.
Bowles was brought up in Slapton and played his early cricket in nearby Malborough before joining South Devon CC when he moved to Newton Abbot in 1993.
Bowles opened the bowling for South Devon for more than a decade, retiring from 1st XI cricket in 2005.
A number of fund-raising events were tied in with the match – a raffle, a cash draw and teas during the interval – and the pot was topped up by one kind-hearted winner.
“The lady who had won first prize in the draw had lost a relative to cancer and when she found out what the cause was she donated the money back to us,” said match manager Richard Michelmore.
Gary’s cousins Chris and Nick Bowles – well known cricketers and rugby players with both Kingsbridge clubs – played in the match. Other members of the cricket fraternity to turn out included Sean Taylor – also ex-South Devon – Mark Stacey, Cliff Lowe and Steve Inch.
Gary’s parents – Cath and Eddie – joined the player for tea.
The Old Malburians won the 35-over match by six runs.
The ELF has also been handed more than £3,000 by Pat Duke and Jonny Norrish, two of Bowles’ former team-mates at South Devon.
Duke and Norrish ran three half-marathons earlier in the summer – Torbay, Exeter and Plymouth – as fund-raisers.

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