Spalding Saga

Post date: Feb 5, 2017 10:56:46 PM

This is the tale of the Spalding Saga. Lets start with the good news. First we won't have to 'brasso ' the Welland Silver Salver trophy for another year at least. Second, all our players arrived on time, in spite of the fact that Stella Henshaw, who was supposed to give Jean Dupree a lift , couldn't find her cars keys. She phoned husband Dennis who was driving to his match in some other exotic Lincolnshire destination and lo and behold she had left the keys in his car. Stella phoned Jean and after much persuasion Jean, who doesn't like driving to Spalding, agreed to take her car. They arrived with minutes to spare.

So, on to what our intrepid band of friendly bowlers were in Spalding for, the second leg of the annual Silver Salver Challenge. We were a considerable amount of shots behind from the first leg. Nobody on either side could remember what the exact number was so we decided to forget it until the end and worry about it then if need be. If need be? You have to be joking !

Anyway, on to the match. Some names, indeed most of them, have been excluded to protect the innocent. On rink one we were 10-3 down after seven ends, 18-4 down after fourteen and finished up after twenty one ends 26-11 down. On being interviewed afterwards our skip's reaction was, if we could have found the length and line we would have been ok.

On rink two we got one on the first end. This looks as if you could be in trouble one of ours was heard to say to one of their's. Whoops, after seven ends we're 8-3 down, after fourteen 17- 5 down, who mentioned trouble ? At the finish 23 -11. Not looking so good. On rink three 8-8 after the seventh, 15-12 down after the fourteenth, 19-18 down with one end to go, flippin 'eck the tension was unbelievable. We were holding two, their skip gets a triple wick for one, game over.

Now at last back to the good news, our rink of Janet Dye, Serena Brunning, Margaret Grainger and Maurice (the stubble) Dye were 19-16 down after twenty but on the last end got a four. Yippee, all is not lost. Rink five 9-1 down after seven, 13-8 after fourteen. Then they pulled back, due to some fine skipping by newcomer to our ranks Adrian Childs, to just one down after nineteen. Sadly they dropped five on the last two ends. On rink six it was a match best forgotten, with all four players failing to get to grips with the tricky outside rink. So ok we lost, but we all know Spalding are a strong club and don't put out teams not to win and we take some consolation that we have held the silver salver for the last two years. We will be back !

Denis Stapleton