Friendly win stumps Boston

Post date: Oct 21, 2019 8:19:46 AM

In their second match of the season our Weekend Friendly fighting force out bowled the Boston Stumpers by an impressive 126-96 after leading from start to finish. The usual pre match excitement saw captain Maggie’s patience being stretched to its limits. First at 10 o’clock in the morning a phone call said that one of our players was down with the flu (the jab is available at all reputable outlets). A frantic phone call to Ron Blake secured his services as a replacement. Thanks Ron. With ten minutes to go we still had one player to arrive. A phone call to their home and mobile numbers was met with an answer phone. The intrepid Roger Graham, who had already played a match earlier, sat downing his second pint of non alcoholic cider (We’ve heard that one before). Keeping his ear to the ground, as all good ex secret service agents do, he readily agreed to step into the breach, so long as he could be provided with a steady flow of the aforementioned beverage. Thanks Roger.

So off they went, to find after the first end that the scoreboard wasn’t showing the aggregate scores. Off the rink comes our intrepid captain flicks all the switches, at the risk of plunging the building into darkness, and finally the board is as it should be apart from saying that we are playing a team called Burghley (thought they were a golf club!). Anyway we are 9-3 up after three ends. Someone bowls a wrong bias, luckily for them Maggie couldn’t find the Wrong Bias Certificates, so the culprit will remain nameless.

Maurice, the “Uke”, Dye was having a job to find his rhythm on rink two and was struggling against his opposite skip, who was heard to be described as a “big wig” which was hardly appropriate as the new led lighting was constantly bouncing off his highly polished scalp. The “Uke’s” quartet were down 3-8 after seven ends. But we are 26-22 up overall. After nine ends we have extended our lead to twenty shots 52-32 with Roger (I only drink non alcoholic cider) part of our best rink who are leading 14-5. Thirteen ends sees us 80-52 overall but the “Uke’s” rink is still struggling 7-15 down. But wait for it they get a four on the fifteenth end which draws tumultuous applause from the spectator. With only five minutes to go on the clock it looks that if only one rink, which includes both captains, will complete twenty one ends. At 4.45 the bell rung with such ferocity that half the players raced to the fire exit. Well not actually raced, that would be exaggerating to say the least. The final score 126-96 to us! And well done to our best rink of Judith Childs, Margaret Grainger and our two super subs Ron Blake and Roger Graham with an impressive 33-7 win and well done of course to the rest of the team. This could be our season!

Rink Scores : Ann Preston-Bambridge, Vanessa Shackleton, Maggie Holden, Doug Ellis won 23-11; Janet Dye, Jenny Desborough, Serena Brunning, Maurice Dye lost 17-22; Howard Neath, Val White, Ken White, David Edwards lost 15-20; Alison Lea, Linda Cave, Joy Winfield, Derek Cave won 17-15; Ken Rawlins, Rory McHard, Cherry Burgess, Adrian Childs won 21-18; Roger Graham, Margaret Grainger, Judith Childs, Ron Blake won 33-7.

For the next Weekend Friendly matches see the notice board opposite the bar. D.S.