Tuesday 17/4 saw our Craptain back among us, as well as the return of the Hammer.  Both looked relaxed and appeared to have benefited from their sojourns in Spain, although Craptain was envious of the fact Hammer’s romantic 5 day trip had resulted in him returning with a bad back... despite rumours being rife about Craptain's own athletic ministrations following a late night call!

Having wilfully ignored the “No Food unless Bought on the Premises” signs, the Almonds loaded up a table with assorted goodies to celebrate our last home game of the season.  Compact disappointed everyone by failing to bring the ‘secret recipe’ roast spuds:  unlike the rest of us presumably, he was too busy with more important things to make time to deliver – he brought rolls & cake he got The Wife to make instead.  It’s a shame peRV wasn’t too busy to buy jars of pickled onions and gherkins…

Craptain put illegal immigrant Gary (aka PJ) on first with Mini Disc.  They scored a bunch of pins, 9 & 22 respectively - MD throwing in a flash of orange underpants now & then to make his turn look brighter than it was – and we finished the first round against Greystoke Sports 9 down.

What in the name of all this is sane Craptain was thinking giving Hammer the honour of being paired with Wiggle, I don’t know – the rain in Spain obviously fogged his brain.   Thanks to my resilience, however, it wasn’t a complete disaster.  Hammer seemed to just about cope with lifting his balls, it being a little known fact that he actually has to have special light balls for bowling usually, because he isn’t man enough to cope with big, heavy ones – well, it used to be a little know fact…  Hammer’s excuses for missing an easy opportunity of a full house and only scoring 21 was that he went on too early, the alley is shit and his purpose was only to inspire his partner:  yeah, right.   With the full support of the Almonds behind him as always, there was unanimous encouragement for him to do just that when he said he wanted to play somewhere else.   Ever had deja vu?  Maybe we should call him Boomerang...

Although I started with a duck, after that my performance was near faultless: even the hitching up of my jeans was executed to perfection, apparently thrilling all with its meticulous implementation, inspiring a Greystoke to deploy the same technique; although I think it’s fair to say I made it a whole lot prettier to watch than he did – I goddamn hope so anyway!!  I finished up with a 24, which was 3 more than MC, and we pulled 5 pins back on the pair to put us only 4 down as Craptain put Exocets Orical & Compact on.

Sitting down filling in scores is not conducive to good match reporting… particularly not taking notes!!  Compact kept me stocked up with snacks – although I’m not sure I appreciated his snickering at the mess I got into whilst intensely enjoying my slab of strawberries & cream cake! – possibly to keep me mellowed out with what I chose to write this week.  Orical scored 5 less than me with 19, and Compact 9 less with his 15.  They only dropped 2 pins though, so at 6 down we were still on for a win if 4^th pair Barnesy Junior & Jocky didn’t do anything too silly!

BJ wasn’t too amused at being dragged out to play in a skittling emergency, but one player short we were all grateful that he joined us.  He scored 11 less than me – 13 – and Jocky scored 15, the same as Compact, but 9 less than me!  They dropped 7 pins on the pair to leave us an unlucky 13 behind as Craptain chalked up peRV & aRCe for ‘anker flankers.

peRV hadn’t had any limb interference since last Tuesday but couldn’t find his equilibrium to do more than score 18, which was 6 short of two-dozen, which is what I scored.  He pulled 3 pins on his Greystoke though, which just goes to show there is no justice in this world, as aRCe got top score and was the only person who scored more than me, reaching the giddy heights of 26, and still dropped 11 pins!!  It was his misfortune to play against a Greystoke determined to make a name for himself with 37 and this saw us 21 pins down as the ‘ankers primped & preened ready for the final showdown.

Trying to bring the flavour of Spain to Almondsbury Sorial Club, Reg dropped a ball on the alley in a poor imitation of flamenco, but drew the line at getting his castanets out.  It was a very close and exciting finish, the Greystokes flouting convention and putting their also-rans on as ‘ankers, but Craptain & Sparky would have to be first to admit they didn’t necessarily take advantage of all their chances…  Craptain scored 7 less than Wiggle, who got 24, which makes Craptain’s score 17.  Sparky only got 1 less than Wiggle, with 23, pulling 19 pins on his oppo to bring us within 3 pins of snatching victory from the jaws of the Tarzans of Greystoke.  Well played the pair though - it was close!

Our last game of the 2006/2007 season will take place at the salubrious Patchway Labour Club against Britannia, on Wednesday 25^th April.  Craptain will be fashionably late, joining us around 8.30pm, so you lucky, lucky skittlers may well be in the cream-softened hands of Wiggle for the first half hour – depending on whether Compact is prompt or delayed.