Carterton's Baden Sparkes spurred his clubmates Sammy Timms and Dave Abbott to one of the biggest wins of the English National Indoor finals at Melton Mowbray.

Sparkes and company sped out of the starting stalls with a five-shot blast against Billy McCay's Chippenham side and stayed in control throughout to rampage past the winning post 28-4 clear to reach the triples' last 16.

Hopes of a quarter-final spot looked bleak when Sparkes's second-round rival Nottingham's Phil Dickens, powered 9-0 ahead.

However, scores on six of the next eight ends saw Carterton draw level at 11-11, only to see Dickens write his own happy ending, eight shots without reply for a 19-11 win.

Timms was also under the cosh in the opening round of the pairs when he and Carterton teammate Rob Clanfield crashed 31-7 to Luton's Luke Nunn and Jim Allen.

Alan Prew and Greg Moon, former English outdoor fours champions from Banbury who bowl indoors for Avon Valley, Warwickshire, stormed all the way to the fours semi-finals yielding only to the eventual champions, City of Ely, 20-6.

Meanwhile Glenn Allen, Oxford & District's 2000 English Under 25 champion, had the ill-fortune to meet another eventual title-winner, Ipswich's John Rednall, in first round of the singles.

Music teacher Rednall raced into a 9-4 lead, but Allen scored three singles and a treble over the next seven ends, reducing the gap to 13-10.

The tenacious Allen added a further six shots over the closing stages, but Rednall kept his nose in front to win the 27-end marathon 21-16.

This was a battling performance by Allen, considering that Rednall had already built up extensive experience of the Melton rinks.

As a qualifier in singles, pairs, triples and fours, he had already finished runner-up in the triples and was a pairs semi-finalist.

Allen's only other title venture came to grief in round one of the fours, when he and Oxford clubmates Nick Welsh, Howard Watts and Chris Allen, Glenn's father, fell 22-11 to East Dorset.