Away v Bletchley Town Saturday 29 July 2023

For the third time in 18 days we sent 4 Triples to Bletchley Town, this time for a friendly match.

We were welcomed by captain for the day Gordon and were able to play in sunshine which made a change from the weather we have had to contend with recently.

This was an unusual fixture in that 3 of the 24 bowlers were playing in their first match. Winslow were represented by Pete Joyner and Roger Hayman who are both new bowlers this year and we are delighted that they have chosen to play some competitive bowls having only recently taken up the game.

This was another close match with the outcome not decided until the penultimate bowl of the game. All four Triples were involved in contests that swung one way and then the other ending up very close.

On rink 2 Stan, Mike and Len fell behind 2:12 after 8 ends but fought back to 12:12 over the next 3 ends. We then won the next 2 ends to take the lead but eventually our opponents finished slightly stronger and we lost 15:18 – a great comeback by our team!

Rink 3 was almost a mirror of rink 2 with Roger H, Roger P and Jef taking an 11:2 lead after 8 ends. Our opponents then won 5 ends in a row to lead by 2 shots but a decent finish saw us win 22:18.

Rink 4 followed a similar pattern to rink 3 with John Jenkins, Sarah and Colin leading 15:2 after 8 ends. Unfortunately we only won 2 of the last 10 ends and were eventually overtaken on the final end to lose 18:19.

Rink 5 was a closer affair with Pete, Cliff and John Gilbey wining 16:14 but it could have been a much bigger win had they not lost a big score on end 3. Nonetheless they did not let this setback get them down and they won 11 of the 18 ends which is quite some feat.

The final score was 71:69 to Winslow. A we also, rather embarrassingly, had a clean sweep taking home all 4 raffle prizes.

As you can see from the above our highest winning rink was that of Roger H, Roger P and Jef.

It was very pleasing to see that both of our debutants finished on winning teams, lets hope that this continues for some time.

This week my thanks go to

  • All the members of Bletchley Town who prepared the green and the refreshments and Kevin for running the bar

  • Pete for stepping up from reserve at short notice

  • Roger H and Pete for representing the club for the first time

Thanks and well done to everyone involved in another enjoyable afternoon of bowls

 

Jef Cawdell

 

Captain