THOMAS Vickers’ face did not once betray what he was feeling during the biggest match since he first started bowling.

But when his opponent, Gareth Herbert, sent long a last wood at all but 17, he released every emotion kept in check over the preceding eight hours.

The Winsford bowler, realising what he had achieved, leapt high following a short sprint and punched the air.

Following six victories during an at times arduous day, the Wharton Cons member earned the most coveted prize in his chosen sport – the British Individual Senior Merit.

He had fallen to his knees by the time jubilant friends and supporters reached him in the middle of number one green at Florence Bowling Club in Stoke.

They, like him, knew the size of the 26-year-old’s achievement.

Vickers is the 10th man from the Mid-Cheshire Bowling Association to win the competition since its inaugural edition in 1910, the first since clubmate Glynn Cookson 18 years ago.

Yet as a 20/1 outsider at the start, most observers didn’t fancy the Cheshire Senior Merit winner’s chances.

That was still the case by the time he started the final against Herbert, representing Warwick and Worcester, who had been brilliant in sending out two-time winner Graeme Wilson in the quarter finals.

And he was similarly so when, at six-across, he twice landed a strike to cause dead ends when Vickers’ woods were closest to the jack.

Herbert, backed by a boisterous travelling support, then established a three-chalk lead at 14-11 and 17-14.

But Vickers was undeterred.

Instead, he won the next five ends without reply to land the £1,200 first prize.

His beaten opponent, and those making most noise, fell silent.

By then, a first-round struggle against David Gill will have seemed a lifetime ago.

Vickers struggled initially, but recovered to 13-across from 9-4 adrift.

He was relieved to progress 21-17.

Buoyed, he was an emphatic victor against Tonie Moxham (21-11), Steve Freer (21-14) and Andy Cairns (21-8) to set up a semi-final encounter with Andrew Moss, a runner-up in 1999.

The Shropshire bowler had eliminated Graham Gardiner, Cookson’s conqueror in the last 32, earlier on.

But at 20-9, Vickers was favourite to again progress with relative ease.

Moss rallied though, taking the following four ends to close to the gap.

However with no margin for error, he erred at the next to bow out 21-14.

Herbert, who counted the Potteries and Yorkshire champions among his victims, could not add a third scalp.

Instead Vickers’ success keeps Cheshire at the top of a list of the most successful counties in the tournament’s history, with 20 wins.

It is also the latest chapter in the story of an already record-breaking season after he became the first bowler to win the Guardian Cup, Roberts Bakery Cup and Cheshire Senior Merit in the same summer.

A crack at the Champion of Champions, at Blackpool in September, is next on the list.

When he gets there, the bookmakers will have his name high on theirs.