WON: 47.25 -37: 8 Points
As the song goes, 🎶 Here we are again, happy as can be, all good friends and jolly good company! 🎶 (Although perhaps it will only be a certain generation that remember that particular song?)
Anyway on a lovely spring evening the first League game of the season for the Redland A Team was at Bath Weston so a long trek to a historically “tricky” opponent, especially on their home green.
It was a new look A Team for this season (not only because of the new kit) and I can’t write this report without acknowledging players who are no longer in the A Team such as Kevin French, Trevor Knowles and Mike Ingham. Kevin and Trevor in particular have been stalwarts of the A Team for many years and any successes that we have had in the past have, in no small part, been down to their inclusion and efforts and I salute them. (And on a personal note I will in particular miss Kevin’s past penmanship of reports for the A Team with myself simply acting as editor).
Having players no longer included means that we welcomed Jake, Vince, Bob and Nick to the A Team and I hope that they secure their places on a long term basis 👍👏
Now unfortunately on the evening when Nick picked Will up to go to the game he looked very unwell and the decision was made to take him back to the Club. For any new members the rules state that you can play a league game one short on a rink as the first and second players on a short rink are allowed to bowl three bowls and the skip, as usual, bowls two bowls. There is however, at the end of the game, a 25% deduction from the score of the side with only three players. In addition you can only do this on a maximum of two rinks so no team can compete with less than ten players.
We wish Will a speedy recovery.
So on to the game:
On RKJ’s rink with Bob, Nick and Larry, after 6 ends we were winning 6-2 but then picking up a 5 on the 7th end brought Bath Weston back into contention. Some good steady bowling then saw Redland win the next five ends to take a 14-7 lead and we eventually ran out the 19-11 winners. 👏
on Josh’s rink with Jake, Vince and Mark Powell a slow start meant that after four ends we were 0-7 down. Things then turned around and winning 11 of the remaining 13 ends we ran out convincing 17-9 winners. 👏
Finally on the “short” rink with Jim, Andy and Nigel we started off poorly going down 0-6 after three ends. However a great bowl from Jim meant that on the ninth end we picked up a 5 and we were back in it at 10-10 with all to play for. At twelve ends we took a 14-11 lead (10.5-11 with the 25% deduction). Unfortunately we couldn’t get over the finishing line and ran out 15-17. 🙁. (I blame myself here as with three bowls I really should have found a much better line and length on a consistent basis, but then I guess you can’t bowl well all the time – and before anyone asks if I bowl well any of the time it does still happen occasionally but age is certainly catching up with me 😆).
All in all I am sure the League Captains / Selectors will agree that if you had offered us 8 points at the beginning of the game we would have been delighted and this marks an excellent start to our 2026 league campaign.
The A Team have a free week next week as our opponents, Bristol, have Somerset commitments and the game will be rearranged for later in the season. If A team players aren’t playing next Thursday perhaps they would like to support the NE or B teams? NE are away to Kingswood & Hanham and the B Team are home to Knowle 3rd team. (And if you want to support the ladies they are home to Canford on Wednesday 6th at 6pm.)