Match Report 6^th November – Almonds v Smelters

Dear Craptain,

There was an ugly rumour circulating last week that you are due back amongst your troops in a couple of weeks time:  probably not a minute too soon, as we are in danger of having to rename ourselves the CD Collection, or the Dcukettes maybe!  Once upon a time the Bowers’ reigned supreme, but megalomaniac Compact appears to be going for autonomy by infiltrating the Almonds with His Own People – first of all we had Minidisk & his cronies, Turk & Lodge; now we have Sophie, masquerading as DD, & new recruit AM (legit under his own moniker this week, but playing his inaugural game as TimIffy), who is a Douglas Outlaw, as is our new Sticker Up Aby. And let’s not forget that CD is also responsible for our Greatest Hits Jocky, Taffy & peRV…  for which we are, obviously, eternally grateful.

Andy & Lodge, then, were first pair:  Compact’s props did wonders for lightening the mood & easing any tension, but nothing for inspiring either to greatness.  Andy, who’d turned up expecting to be hailed a hero after his opening night, quickly learned that you are only as good as your last score & has now gone from having a lot to live up to, to having a lot to live down after only scoring 7 this time out - & he’d even dragged the adoring wife, Sister Douglas, out to watch too!  At least he can really feel one of the gang now that he’s fallen prey to the Curse of the Almonds.  Lodge, meanwhile, was told he might as well go for the Archie with his last ball, having left himself only 2 pins besides the front one standing, & he said that he was…  but he couldn’t even hit that!!  He finished up on 10, which meant that we were 16 down at this early stage, which didn’t feel very sweet at all.

Next up were DD (in the guise of SavvyDisk) & Turk, which was a potentially volatile bit of pairing if ever I saw one – perhaps Compact was hoping they’d be trying so hard to outdo one another’s scores they’d play a blinder, but it actually meant that in their desperation not to be the worst player it was touch & go if either got into double figures.  In the end SD came out the victor in that personal battle, scoring 10 to Turk’s 8 – she should have had more, but rather unsportingly The Smelters raised an objection to the pins she took out with her last ball following a ricochet off the wall & they were disallowed.  

Now 34 in arrears, Compact put MiniDisk on with Wiggle.  Words fail me…  MiniDisk reckoned he was having trouble keeping his trousers up & asked for a belt, but unfortunately for him CD didn’t have one of those amongst his bag of tricks so he had to manage with his trousers hanging at half mast – I couldn’t really see the difference to when he does have a belt, & neither could the scoreboard when 16 was chalked up.  I don’t really want to talk about my 12…  I am sure Compact was only trying to help by getting his quacker out at this point & giving it a good blow, but the experience was rather unnerving & I struggled to get my dozen as I really didn’t know what was going to happen next. 

After that inaccurate bit of casting, the Almonds now found themselves 48 pins behind the Smelters & Compact choosing to put Hammer & Barnesy Junior on to pull us back some much needed pins.  Sparky had a marvellous suggestion to help Wiggle out with the Match Report, which I have chosen to ignore, assuming this might be mildly more amusing that just looking at a one-pager with CRAP written on it in 72 font!!  Hammer, who didn’t enjoy Compact’s cabaret & wished he’d stayed home to do his ironing – as did we all – managed to break through the pain barrier & put 26 on the board.  He took 7 with his 1^st ball on his last up & we were all confident of a ‘spare’, but he missed with the 2^nd ball so spectacularly he was told he might as well have thrown it into the car park.  He did manage to take 1 more with his last ball to score 8, but no one was impressed with that after the careless way he threw our spare away.  Nobody benefited from hearing that he only comes when he’s got nothing better to do, or from knowing he gets his inspiration from thinking about peRV – presumably in his sleek black lycra – but a tad more interest, or do I mean glee?, was shown when suggesting he change his name to Rug, because he is always being walked on.

BJ was in fine bouncing form, almost keeping pace by scoring 24.  They pulled 11 pins back, but still 37 down on the game we were looking at a big hill to climb to turn the game around enough to win.  Compact put Orical & himself on next, hoping to further improve our position, which it did, but unfortunately not enough to take advantage of the lowest scoring Smelters so far.  Orical kept up a steady stream of missiles to pontoon on 21, but Compact, as well as draining his reserves with the cabaret act, was suffering a bout of the Right Hump with peRV for his lack of commitment to the Dcukettes for football & therefore struggled to concentrate for more than 16 pins – peRV rubbed salt into the wound by turning up all smiles & no remorse before the evening was out, happily oblivious to any simmering atmosphere, even from Hammer, who hid his disappointment well that peRV had left the lycra at home.