Monday 8 May 2017

Starring Jamo as Charles Bronson and A.N.Other as James Coburn, with JP and Richie arguing over being John Layton

The Saturday B side took the trip to Lea Hall with two plans in mind.
Win the game and load up on cheap mild and i'll be buggered by the
state of them they managed both. After a slow start to the season the
B team are picking things up with their second away win on the bounce
with strong contributions from the whole team.

For those of you with long memories you may remember my Mexican cousin
who used to post on talking bowls, Chukilito Burrito. He called me last
night to congratulate the side on, and I quote "their Massiiiiivee
Cajones" i don't know what he is on about as i don't speako the lingo
but i know one thing, we showed we have big bollocks yesterday.

The A side has had a rough start to the year being bowlers missing
through all sorts of reasons and with a strong, undefeated Boldmere in
town life looked like it could well be tough. For context the
Boldmeres last two performances at ours were winning by 68 and coming
from a shed load down to lose by 2 at the death.

We went into this game with a further two seniors missing. Kiff was on
on holiday and is probably trying to convince the Spanish they should
take up bowls and Wiggy, well what can i say about wiggy. After his
mini meltdown last week we thought he should take a break and Spindle
very kindly shoehorned him into their Torquay bound short mat team. I
gather they needed someone to roll the mat up after the game. Thank
you Spindle from all at the Olton as we know its not easy but your
services to babysitting should earn you a knighthood. If Wiggy hasn't
bought us all some rock back or fudge then he is in major trouble.
Luckily to mitigate the shortage we had Richie available after a
hiatus and Larry had his operation cancelled and decided to gut out
the day bowling instead of following doctors orders and resting.


The first four was a mixed bag with some very good performances but no
real results for the home team. Larry battled gamely with his back to
lose 19. Cat was brilliant to get 14 against Paul Copson who always
performs on our green. I lost 13 to Jonah who bowled very well but
from 13.11 up it was a poor card for us, especially with my army of
followers watching on with hot chocolates in their hands. Thankfully
despite a late rally Dave Hosgood managed to hold on and win to 17
against Steve Carter. So 13 down after Four the Boldmere had their
tails up and a good card going on the green.

Steve Harper bowled excellently to win 3 and bring the deficit to 31
Messiah endured a bad day at the office with nothing going right.
Thankfully our old stagers found their form of yesteryear with Richie
winning 5 and JP continuing his resurgence in form, winning to 8 to
bring the game back to a two shot difference. Killer showed all the
experience and poise that went missing last week and despite a rough
game for him he managed to keep focused and grind away for some vital
late shots to finish with 12. So after 8 we were 11 down

Dodge had earlier purchased tea from the pub at great expense when it
is free in the club house, proving that he is quite mad, but his return has greatly
boosted us with a timely win to 13 to bring the deficit down again to
the odd few. Sharky smelt blood in the water and went after Andy on
his first senior game in quite a while. Andy worked hard and held of
the predator for a while but Sharkey's experience and class told with
him running out winning 11 to take the lead 13.


The game was in the balance but Boldmere were confident, both their players only had to get to
fifteen to secure the victory. Alan was 7.4 up against Scott and
Jaymo was level pegging with John Daley at about 12-12 i was sure it
was fourteen across but that would mean Jaymo and John would have
played at an epically slow pace that would have had Chris Baker
chanting Boring. The Noise from Boldmere was deafening but slowly we
found our voices as while Jaymo's game seemed to tread water Scotty
abandoned his usual game and started nurdling various marks around the
crown scoring some quick fire twos to go 20-8 up. At this point Alan
pounced and at 20 nine down and jack in hand and with the other game
poised at 16 across a good couple of ends would change momentum. Alan
led okay but he hadn't done enough to change the mark and Scott bowled
in leaving Alan with very little room to play with. Alan sent his wood
and it looked tight from the get go but took an age trundling across
the grass before it was obvious it couldn't count and the game was
done 21-9. Scott had been kicking himself allowing the final shot but
in truth it changed nothing - 8 or nine Chris had to win to win us the
game all that mattered was winning it straight back.


Amazingly Chris was now only 17 16 and was just bowling his lead wood. The end
finished and with two arms in the air he was informed of the situation
win and we win. The Atmosphere seemed to have weighed heavy on
Boldmere's final two - while my double act were Blues brothers cool,
Sinatra and Martin cool and those of us on the side were three
stooges manic. Jaymo managed to run out to 16 to seal the game and an
epic 4 shot victory.


Last week i had bemoaned the team's attitude shift from the week before.
This week all complaints, gripes and worries were answered
emphatically, now we just need to learn to keep that team ethic and
effort at that level all year. It is amazing what can be achieved if
you do. A big thanks to all the supporters today, even the ones who
just stood on the balcony looking perplexed as to why grown adults
would be putting themselves through such torture for fun. This feeling
is why we do, there have been some amazing results since i came back
to the Olton: wins away at places we hadn't thought possible but all
in all this was the result. A historically flakey side coming back
from 31 down against a side that strong shows how much people have
improved. Maybe it doesn't show in the plus or minus column or in the
win lost tally but when it matters in tight games that is when you can
see it. I am a very happy and proud Captain so happy i was even sorry
Wiggy wasn't part of it , well okay i am not that happy but yeah i am
well chuffed.

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