Obituary

Eulogy for Gordon Cook given by Rex Hobbs

How do I cover a 50 year bowling career in just a few minutes?
Here are just a few recollections from the late nineties until now.

Gordon joined Billericay Bowling Club in1970 and it was nearly 3 decades later that I appeared on the bowling scene and was persuaded to take over the Club Secretary position from John Fitzgerald

Having retrieved all the Club records from John's home on Canvey Island it was immediately obvious that I needed to establish a data base for easy reference as the Club had then 76 Gents and 47 Ladies.

Gordon was one of the first to welcome me in the role and made it clear that I needed to get to know as many players as possible PDQ. and don't be authoritative (bossy) like the last one!   Good Advice.

Turning to Gordon's early years....he was soon showing real potential by winning his first internal singles competition.  He went on from strength to strength and achieved many victories during his 54 year illustrious bowling career  (outdoors at Billericay and indoors at Falcon IBC)
One of his most notable achievements was winning the outdoor Club Men's  Championship 7 times; he also won over a long period of time his favourite competition....
 ...the Hutton Cup 9 times plus many other internal and external comps right up into the early part of the new century.

Gordon duly became County Badged, Outdoor and Indoor and was always keen to ensure budding Billericay lads were given the opportunity to be trialled to undertake the long hard road  for them to become badged.

Gordon soon became one of our band of elite players amongst the likes of Doug Weekes. Reg Foster, Fred Nicholson, Denis Nicholson, John Clark, Eddie Dennison, who we lost quite recently, Bernie Regan, Mike Horton and some of us who are here today had the pleasure of being (occasionally) invited to play with them which was a great honour for us and helped considerably with our playing improvement.

Our Club was very fortunate to have other members of Gordon's family join us through the years such as the wonderful Marion who with Gordon did so much work for the Club and was a terrific bowler in her own right (1976 to 2011) and of course Derek (1977 to 1989)  a renowned bowler throughout the County and now at Writtle BC   (Their gain ...our loss)

Both Gordon and Marion held officer positions and were awarded Life Membership for their overall tremendous contribution to our Club over many years.

I know I speak on behalf of all our older and younger members of the Club who benefited from all his good advice and his ever encouraging words.   He will be well remembered for his fantastic memory.....he and Simon Van Dam could recount exactly what happened in games that had gone ages before.  It was truly unbelievable !!

I would just finish by saying....
We at the Club will sorely miss him as he is the last of a long line  of superb bowlers  and remember him right to the end for  giving excellent advice on which shot to play from his favourite bench just before he took a gentle siesta..   I will always treasure the moment when he came to support me at the C and D Finals in 2006 when I was playing in my first external Singles Final (The Officers Cup).
I was losing 15-18 when he stood up and yelled ...Come on boy...you can do it and fist pumped all the way to my victory 21-19.  what a man!  Mike Geiger was also there and gently clapping!!

So.......a wonderful Member and bowler.  They don't make 'em like him any more!

Rex