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Match Report: Wednesday 17th October – Smugglers v Almonds Dear Craptain, The Smugglers must have thought their ship had come in following the Almonds first offerings on Wednesday at Patchway Sports & Social Club, with Turk & Compact putting us 15 leagues down after scoring 21 & 22 respectively, & then Lodge & Orical doubling the descent to 30 with their 10 & 22 – albeit Orical supplying some early excitement by scoring a 9! The Almonds’ spirits certainly sunk beneath the torrent of waves the Smugglers were churning up in their eagerness to get to the cargo in the hold, which in this case would be 2 Golden Doubloons for the Treasure Trove that is the League Tables.
Little did the Smugglers know that Customs & Excise were lurking in the rocky outcrops, with their trusty muskets primed & ready to fire the smouldering contents of smoking hot balls from their barrels onto the enemy’s unsuspecting, thieving hands. Jocky & aRCe eased us into position by dragging us 5 leagues nearer to our target: Jocky scored a sweet 16 whilst aRCe stormed his way to a 30, chalking up a 9 in the process – Orical was very confident of aRCe effecting a strike at this point, but with no union to consult aRCe played it safe. 25 down, Compact now played Wiggle with peRV. After my experience the previous week (4 dcuks, 5 pins) I had rather hoped to be ‘rested’: despite appealing to our Vice Craptain’s better nature (no, I don’t know what I was thinking either) & offering to stand down for the benefit of the team – deciding against out & out pleading or begging lest my suppliant kneeling position be misconstrued – I was shown no mercy, Compact going for the “get straight back on the horse” method of fear control. As it turned out, I did OK – only bottling it at the last up, when I got one of those pesky dcuks because I got thoroughly over excited about being on 28 with 3 balls to go! Having been told to “get off” in no uncertain terms by Compact, I watched my partner put the finishing touches to his own salvo, bringing his score up to 26 & pulling 14 pins on his Smuggler. Our venerable Vice crediting us with turning the game around went some way to compensating for the lack of a 2nd 30+ on my score sheet as well as a potential 2nd ‘top score’. I garnered further satisfaction when I realised I’d pulled 13 pins myself, & accepted peRV’s exuberant ‘hi-5’ for our efforts & putting the Almonds in a much more buoyant mood & favourable position at 2 pins up.
As MiniDisk didn’t bother to show his face until almost the 11th hour, his punishment was to be played 5th pair with Hammer. It didn’t seem to affect him adversely as he kept perfect pace with the MC, both finishing on 25. Wiggle returning the favour of advice on what pin to play for, however, had a much more desirable effect on Hammer than she could have hoped: he served up duck a l’obscenities! During Wiggle’s efforts Hammer had found it necessary to comment that he ‘wouldn’t go for that one’ when she missed the quarter & hit the copper instead, but when she echoed the phrase back at Hammer after he missed the front pin & took out ineffectual ones he just couldn’t take the heat.
Thanks to a Smuggler struggling to pick up any contraband at all, our Young Gun collected us another 23 pins so that we were a very comfortable 25 in front as ‘ankers Chuckle 1 & Sparky put down their beer, rubbed their hands free of grease picked up from the sausage & chips we’d all scoffed earlier, & limbered up ready to take it easy, the hard work already being done. With no pressure on him, & Compact’s cunning change-around in playing order making all the difference (part of the ‘Bullshit’ School of Skittles Management) C1 was free to concentrate on a Big Score : he was going great guns – his first 9 taken with only 2 balls, but he rather let the side down by only just managing to clip 1 pin with his 3rd to take 10 on his ‘spare’, and his 2nd requiring all 3 – until Barnesy made it perfectly clear that no matter how well he played he still wasn’t getting lucky when he got home, whereupon he went off the boil and got a duck ! Rallying when he realised he could go for the consolation prize of making work for her with having to fill in forms to submit his ‘highest away score’, he finished on 38, completely annihilating his Smuggler in the process, who only got 6.
Sparky, meanwhile, was enjoying more modest success against the highest scoring Smuggler – despite hitting 29, Sparky dropped 9 pins with his Smuggler determined to prove that anything an Almond could do, he could do better – or, as it turned out, just as well ! With the 23 pins C1 had claimed added to the pot, the Almonds enjoyed a win by 48 pins this week – a win made all the sweeter because it had looked very ominious for us at the start of the match.
Compact, as you would expect, claimed all the credit by putting it down to his superior choices of playing exactly the right skittler at the most optimum time… let’s hope he does the job again next Tuesday 23/10 when we play on our home alley against Britannia – which should be interesting when he’s already received notifications of absence from half the team !! |
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