The Summer begins here

The season started well at Abbey Lane on Tuesday afternoon with a comprehensive 8 – 0 drubbing of Epping in the first round of matches in the Essex and Herts Seniors League. The most decisive performance was on the rink with Frank as skip, Dave as 2 and Pip as lead, securing a stunning 36 – 6 win. Team captain, Marion, was extremely pleased with the performance of all her squad and is looking forward to Thursday’s visit to Stansted.

The next evening saw the start of the North West Essex Bowls League with both the A and B teams at home. The A team hosted the current champions, Clavering, and were a whisker away from securing a 6 – 2 victory. In a game in which the initiative in each of the three rinks ebbed and flowed it came down to the last end of the last match to finish. With the win points split 4 -2 in our favour, it came down to the aggregate score for the final two points which Clavering secured by one bowl (46-47). Thus, the spoils were shared four apiece. Cliff and Alix both led their rinks to victory coming back from mid game deficits with Cliff’s number two, Darren, on A team debut, settling in nicely as the game progressed.

The B team played Steeple Bumpstead Bs, they also won two of the three rinks but with more comfortable margins thus gaining the aggregate points (57 – 49) and a 6 – 2 scoreline. Roly, playing his first game with his new release assistant, led his rink to a comfortable win and debutant B skip, Ralph, came from behind to help secure the team win.

Unfortunately, a depleted C team travelled to Thaxted under sourced and lost to their B team 0 – 8. A sterling effort from those who competed against the odds. It is important that Peter knows availability, preferably a week in advance, so we avoid the risk of diminishing our status in this competitive league composed of other clubs A and B teams: this league is proper bowls and we should have the bowlers to be competitive in it.

Clavering were the visitors again on Saturday for a marvellous friendly in the spring sunshine. With both teams featuring players at various stages of their bowling careers, the rink scores ebbed and flowed. The end result was a shared aggregate: the final bowl of the afternoon’s 972 deliveries, bowled by Clavering’s Drew West, saw him snatch the end and level the scores at 47 all. On the rinks, our only win was led be Ralph with Nick and Peter in support.

Keep an eye on the fixture list: there is inevitably unavailability across the weeks so we need as many people to be available as possible each week. Each Wednesday we need 27 bowlers to play; that is a reasonable proportion of the active membership.

Steeple Bumpstead league starts on Friday, 15th May, away at Castle Hedingham: good luck to Veda and her squad.

Keep Sunday 31 May in your diaries for our Summer Open Day. The next Saturday fixture is Saturday13 June.