12th June B&D : Away @ GBB (Won 44-41) – 6pts
We continue our winning ways, but after the game we all seemed to be a bit “flat”, although to win at GBs and only on one rink what do we expect?
And only scoring 44 shots this would normally be a losing position…….
At 11 ends we were 5 down overall and things seemed to be going against us but with Jim’s rink picking up a 5 and Roger’s winning 3 ends on the trot the game was changing, could we push on and gain the advantage?
This week we won 6 out of the last 9 ends and this enabled us to just sneak in front 👏
On Jim’s rink with Will, Nigel and Andy we were in front from 4 ends and getting 6 shots out of the last 3 we finished 23-10.
On Josh’s rink with Calvin, Larry and Kev we started by winning the first 5 ends but dropping a stupid 6 we always trying to come back, although picking up 4 over the last 3 ends helped to get the overall win over the line 👍
On Roger’s rink with Keith, Mike and Jon the score didn’t seem to reflect our bowling, but once again we only dropped those 1′ s and 2′ s to be only 3 behind at 14 ends, but we just couldn’t get any closer, to end 8-16.
The best part of the evening was when Josh in his usual “penny pinching” way did a deal with Ali Binnie to have the last 2 pasties for half price, the smile was quickly knocked off his face when Scott Avery pinched one of the pasties and left Josh with only one! 🥧
Scott we forgive you nicking a few shots during the game, but nicking the pasty – that was class! 😃
A free week next Thursday for the B&D squad but a busy weekend with 2 two rink games coming up 🤞
11th June LL : Away @ Kingswood and Hanham (32-20) – 8pts
A still summer’s evening, pleasantly warm and sunny, we all arrived at Kingswood ready to play and spotted that the rinks were set up to play across the green, never played across we all said. Went in to do the cards came out and the green was set up to play away, plus a colour change !!
Gill with Sue, Karen and Colette struggled to settle in, but got the jack on the third end , and held on to it until the 9th . Finishing 14-10 for two points.
Wendy with Liz, Lin and Nina started as we meant to go on picking up a 5 on the first end, and staying on top – finishing 18-10 two points and the overall 4 points. Not all the results are in but we are guaranteed to retain our position at the top of the division this week and next.
Week 7 is our “rest week” back on the 25th for the second half of the season.
10th June “Lloyd Trophy” : Home v St Andrew’s (Won 54-40)
In a repeat of last season’s Final the win wasn’t quite as easy as the score suggests 😳 (Editor’s Note – We lost that Final Kev!!)
With BSA losing some of their best players due to them moving away I would suggest they were not quite as strong a team as in that Final
Although BSA are always extremely competitive/not to be under estimated and so it turned out to be…
We were always in front but never far enough to relax.
At 10 ends we were only 4 up but with Jim’s crew adding 7 over the next 3 ends the game started to flip around and we pushed our advantage to close out the game 👏
I was tempted to pay Josh’s match fee, as a sort of “entrance fee” to watch the master at work! although from what I saw of his bowling early on I would have demanded a refund! 💰
On his rink with Mark, Larry and Calvin, there was then some good bowling, picking up 3 threes on the trot ended 23-15.
(As Mark said, the rink “dove tailed together”, each bowling good woods at different times)- rink compatability is very important!
On Jim’s rink with Will, Nigel and Andy, once again went into a commanding lead to be 18 up at 13, drifted away slightly towards the end, but by this time the game was in the bag. 💼
On Roger’s rink with Keith, Mike and Jon, behind early on, but once again keeping the dropped shots to only 1 or 2 could have slipped away, but the standard of players on this rink eventually started to prevail and winning the last 6 out of 9 ends finished 13-11.
Editor’s Note: During the game I said to Mike Ingham that although they were losing they should focus on the overall score and only drop 1’s or 2’s. Keith overheard this and said that no, their aim was to win on their rink – which they did! Great attitude Keith and well done this rink 👏
A good result all round.
10th June “NE Cup” : Away @ Yate B (Won 44-43)
This was a classic cup match, with nothing decided until the very last shot!
Yate is not the easiest place to get to at the moment, as some of us discovered; but we did just have a full team of 12 when we started, after a bit of friendly procrastinating banter about the roadworks etc.
On Ian’s rink, with Dave H, Mike H (making a successful competitive debut for RGBC) and Pete, we seemed to be letting things slip early on. But a solid 8, 9,10 brought us right back into contention and after that it was just a matter of keeping our noses in front, which we did, winning 15-11.
On Rick’s rink, with Mike W, Bob and Dave S, again Yate built a solid lead, 11-4 after 7. But then a consistent run of ends, including a morale boosting 4 on the 9th, resulted in a 14-11 advantage. However, it continued to be tight, until we secured a very important, as it turned out, 16-14 victory.
But all that was boring compared to what happened on Vince’s rink with, Marek, Bruce and Phil. 6-4 after 8 suddenly became 6-18 after 13, and our aggregate total was looking lost. But some fantastic recovery bowling, and some brilliant woods from Vince on the final 2 ends (no pressure, we were all watching!) gave us the points we needed to win the match overall.
This was a great win and, importantly, a huge team effort where the end result was kept firmly in sight on all 3 rinks. I hope that we can take that momentum into our Thursday league match against GBB.
Thanks to everyone who played. Olveston await in the next round.
8th June “Clarence Davey” : Home v Portishead RBL (Won 80-78)
To quote Mark Twain “news of my demise has been greatly exaggerated!” Your usual match reporter is back on the beat…..
Editor’s Note: Mark Twain also said: “You meet people who forget you, you forget people you meet, but sometimes you meet those people you can’t forget. Those are your friends”. 😃
Unlike Andy I will not subject you to any philosophical musings [Editor’s Note: Already done!] on things coming to an end etc and get straight onto the match report.
Not playing Somerset teams very often it’s hard to to gauge the expected strength of the opposition, although Portishead RBL have traditionally been strong and this team contained a Somerset Middleton Cup skip so we were probably in for a close game and so it turned out.
We were virtually in front all the way through, sometimes by a fair margin, others by 1 or 2 shots.
On Jim’s rink with Will, Mark D and Andy, put in their usual steady performance; were always in front and whilst conceding 9 over the last 3 ends ran out 19-15 winners 👏
On Larry’s rink with Mike, Vince and Charlie, they went off to a commanding 15-3 start but going off track in the middle section of the game were pegged back to 17-21 down at 16 ends and at this point it would have been easy to have “lost a bit of heart” and drifted away but they kept plugging away to end 24-24 👍
On Josh’s rink with Calvin, Kev and Gerry at 3 ends in and with our woods all 3 yards short, Josh announced, “This isn’t the same quality as yesterday” and then proceeded to bowl his 2 woods 4 yards short! He redeemed himself later with some great draws and a couple of “take out shots’, which Josh played with great success. You’ve got to look for those opportunities – they can change a game!
We ended 27-11 😃
At 18 ends we were 17 up and it appeared to be a fairly easy task to finish off the game, but with Josh’s crowd dropping a 2 on the last end and Jim’s crew losing their last 3, things started becoming a bit close for comfort, Larry’s crew ended with a 3 which gave us a bit of a cushion….
On Roger’s rink with Nigel, Ian and Bob went behind early on but only conceding 1’s and 2’s came back to 9-13 at 14 ends. Unfortunately RBL pushed on again, but we had an overall 7 shot cushion going into the last end and we were 5 down; but this was irrelevant, and Roger didn’t bowl his last wood to give us the overall win. 🥇
PS after all Calvin (Gordon Ramsay?) Schlaepfer’s talk of bacon rolls and getting orders in, he got nowhere near the kitchen (thank goodness) and the excellent rolls were provided by Carol and Wendy 🧑🍳🧑🍳
Thanks once again to them.
Next round home to GB Britons or Olveston on Sunday 27th July at 10am.
5th June B&D : Home v Keynsham (Won 58-33) – 8pts
Well here we are. I must start this week’s match report by acknowledging the work carried out in the past on these reports by Kevin, but as this week Kevin played for the North East team (and was I was pleased to note a member of their only winning rink) at the same time I am reminded that “all good things come to an end”. Which as you will all know is a common phrase that reflects the understanding that nothing lasts forever and that things that are considered good or special are temporary. The phrase interestingly emphasises the impermanence of all things and the cyclical nature of experience, where periods of happiness are inevitably followed by periods of change or sadness….. anyway enough of all that and back to the bowls!
This was, to be frank, a crucial game in our Division 1 campaign this season and 8 points was the least that we wanted/needed from this game and the team delivered, well done 👏
On Josh’s rink with Calvin, Larry and Mark they started well being 22-6 up at 9 ends and did not let up finishing 31-13. Now for the purposes of this report I am a humble reporter and can only report the facts as they are told to me. So in the bar after the game Josh said to me what a great game he had had and that I should mention that in this report. Well Josh there is no “I” in team and speaking to your team mates the consensus was that the man of the match on your team was actually Calvin, so we’ll played Calvin keep up the good work…. 😁
With 6 points seemingly in the bag it was over to the other two rinks.
On Jim’s rink with myself, Nigel and Will at one point I thought Jim was going to need some sort of medical assistance as the number of “wicks” that the opposition skip had in the first few ends which resulted in them having shot when we were holding a count was simply unfathomable. (I know that wicks are, of course part of the game but when they are not specifically played for they can be very annoying for the opposition). So at 9 ends we were trailing 5-7 and to be frank we were all very frustrated. 😩
On end 10 however I gave up on the hand that I had been battling against and switched resulting in a much better result. (I don’t really blame myself here as Nigel, Will or Jim should have advised me to switch much earlier 😂 ). This together with some great bowling by the rest of the team, especially Jim meant we ran out 17-8 winners. 👍
So with 8 points in the bag attention turned to Roger’s rink with Jon (welcome to the team Jon), Mike and Keith. This was a real nip and tuck battle and at 16 ends the score was tied at 10 all. Despite Mike drawing a great close wood their two managed to dislodge it and move the jack and unfortunately despite valiant efforts by Keith and Roger we dropped a 2 to finish 10-12.
Next week GBs away which is sure to be a stern test.
Finally good luck to Josh in the Middleton Cup on Saturday. 🤞
5th June N.E : Away @ St Anne’s (Lost 32-57) – 2pts
After last week’s victory, this was a reminder of how tough a division this is. A few of the St Anne’s players had been at Redland earlier in the week and had given an indication of what a strong team they are.
On Nick’s rink, with Nina, Pete and Kev, we were 2 down after 2, but a solid 4 on the 3rd changed the momentum and we really never looked back, (although conceding a 4 on the 14th was slightly unnerving), finally securing a confident 18-12 win.
On Vince’s rink, with Mike W, Bob and Marek, we struggled to get going, and although we got back to 5-9 after 9 there was little joy after that as St Anne’s built up a very commanding lead, 5-26.
On Rick’s rink, with Dave H, Bruce and Ian, there was much greater parity for much of the contest and we were only trailing 9-11 after 11, but then the next 3 ends effectively decided the result and a 3 on the 16th meant there was no way back, though we did win the very last end making it 11-19.
There has been a certain amount of injury and unavailability in this first month, so we must remain upbeat and look for some positive results in the next few weeks.
4th June LL : Home v Long Ashton (Won) – 8pts
This was going to be a tough match, Long Ashton only 3 points behind us on the tables, so one we really needed to win.
Gill with Sue Karen and Colette were 12-0 ahead by the 4th end and stayed in control throughout, 17- 4 at the 11th end but losing the next 5 ends meant finishing 18-13.
Wendy with Lin, Carol and Nina did not start well, Wendy helpfully giving the opposition an extra shot on the first two ends. 5-0 down going into the third end but we won the 3rd end and long jacks saved the day, again!
By the 10h end we were 19-5 up, we kept plugging away keeping their score against us to 1s and 2s, until we finished 24-12.
Next week away at K& H (B team) and Long Ashton have their first rest week.
1st June B.E Top Club : Away @ Kingswood and Hanham (Won 3-2)
Well we are doing something right in winning a further knockout competition 👏
With the important 2 singles games won it was a question of whether we could win on one of the other rinks?
Andy in the 2 woods assailed Dave Hanney (an ex Redland member) with both his bowls and loquaciousness*(*see below for definition ), Dave clearly didn’t have his ear plugs in and Andy recorded a 15 9 win. 👍
Jim in the 4 wood singles struggled at first with the pace of the green going 4 10 down at 7 ends, a fight back led to Jim going 17 14 up and then was holding game but his opponent drew to cut down to 3. One of my truisms coming up! – getting that last one in the singles can be problematic and so it proved with Jim pegged back to 20 18 and then his opponent drew shot, but Jim bowled his last wood to take this out and record a great win 🥳
Now could one of the other rinks win to seal the game?
In the pairs with Will and Larry were never far behind to be 3 behind at 10 ends, things then seemed to go against them and ended 12 22 down. 😔
In the triples with Josh, Mike and Gerry we were always behind, but came back to be 10 13 down at 14 ends, but couldn’t just get in front to finish 11 17
In the fours with Roger, Nigel, Kev and Jon all contributing some good woods at different times (it’s a team game!) we were not getting the rub of it early on, but a 4 on end 8 put us 2 in front and changed the dynamic. At 14 9 up with 4 ends to go, as Kev said just pick up a couple of ones and only drop ones and “use up those remaining ends” and this was the case, we protected our advantage to finish 16 11.
Well done.
Home to Olveston or GB Britons in the next round.
* loquaciousness – given to excessive talking! 😂