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Match Report: Tuesday 11th December 2007 – Almonds v Greystoke
Tuesday’s match on our home alley against Greystoke saw the boys have a lot of problems with their balls. For Lodge it was sticky ones, peRV’s were cold & as for Jocky, well his were just all mixed up!
We got off to a very prompt start, with Lodge & peRV in the driving seat. Craptain was on time & in charge, Compact relegated to supportive motivational coaching: boy were we in trouble… Lodge, without the support of ‘Chantelle’ this week & trying to cope with sticky balls that didn’t want to leave the warmth of his hands, couldn’t quite manage double figures & finished up on 8, this despite Compact coaching him throughout his ups – there’s a shocker. PeRV, suffering greatly from the cold & trying to warm his haunches on the radiator – looking hopefully over at Wiggle trying to establish whether she was as cold, but she wasn’t taking any chances & no way was he going to tell through a thick jumper & mountain walking jacket!! – struggled with his sub zero balls, letting go far too early as he was unable to judge the firing point, but still managed to hit 19 & save us from too much disgrace by keeping our deficit to 12.
Next up we had Turk & Jocky. Does it really matter that Turk scored 18, Jocky 21, or that they pulled 2 pins to leave us only 10 behind? The best bit of the whole night was Turk coming out with the question, “have you ever poked a Puffa fish & made it swell up?” None of The Boys were ready to come out & admit that they had & Turk was advised to keep quiet about it & not sound so loud & proud in public, but he was unabashed & his voice went up an octave as he indignantly & earnestly insisted that he’d enjoyed it… but he couldn’t speak for the Puffa fish!! Even Jocky’s mixed up balls couldn’t compete with that…
3rd pair we were treated to a display by the pigtail-hatted MiniDisk & his unadorned partner Taffy. MiniDisk took up stance on the backboard & manfully flicked his pigtails out of the way, which got Hammer all excited because the movement reminded him of a horse using its tail to flick away an oncoming, irritating horsefly… alarmed by the suggestion that Hammer’s flanks were quivering by the suggestive flirtatious gesture, MiniDisk threw a dcuk. Promised that Hammer would be reined in at a safe distance by his harness, MiniDisk recovered his composure & went on to hit 30, hitting the road straight after. Taffy did half as well with 15, but happily they pulled a stonking 22 pins on the less than Tarzan-like Greystokes to put us 12 in front at half time.
Barnesy – who had forced herself out having been made to feel guilty by Pete about not wanting to come to skittles because she was so tired, & then wondered why it was OK for Pete to want to come out but then spend his evening in the other room watching football instead of supporting the rest of the team – kept herself awake by examining the variety of shades of pink The Boys were displaying. This isn’t quite as exciting as it sounds, but caused much laughter via the various bemused explanations as to why some had faded to such a degree: Compact & MiniDisk came under closest scrutiny, but neither could explain their white ‘bustlines’ so Compact got on the blower to Mrs D & although we never did get a definitive answer, he looked quite white by the time she’d finished with him too.
Back at the game, the 2 exocets were on, Compact & Orical. Always on the lookout for new techniques, Compact tried out the cha cha slide as part of his routine, but gave that up as a bad job after nearly cha cha-ing onto his ass. There wasn’t a lot of atmosphere to be had at this point: when Wiggle asked where all The Boys had gone, Barnesy said that the boys had gone home, but JS, Pete & Rob were in the bar watching football… it must have been a bloody good match, because Sparky came back in with a fierce nosebleed! All concerned for his partner, Hammer tried to ‘help’, which just resulted in Sparky having to get aggressive & shout “don’t touch me” at him. The chorus of Hammertime that followed was quite rousing I thought… Despite being put off guard by Hammer asking him if he’d been round his house as he’d found a pair of still-bagged earplugs in his bedroom, Compact managed to score 22, without the aid of any dcuks. His enjoyment of a rightfully earned stroke of Pussy was dampened by Barnesy slapping him away & telling him to keep his hands to himself, making him think that maybe Mrs D is spending too much time with Barnesy.
Orical kept a low profile during his playing phase, maybe not to draw attention to the fact he wasn’t playing so well. But he held his man with 14, & with Compact pulling 5 on his, we saw our lead increased to 17 as Sparky & Craptain were chalked up to play. We had to have a quick substitution as Craptain hadn’t been paying attention & was unaware Sparky was still a bleeder, & Hammer was denied the opportunity of going head to head with Chuckle 1 as ‘ankers.
Unable to sneak out and get his t-shirt back off Dobbin yet, Hammer was in civvies once again, this time in a British Horse-Racing Green jumper. The best you can say about his performance this week was that he held his man, which makes a change from horses, & scored a reasonable 22. Craptain was more interested in studying the League tables with Compact than concentrating on the task in hand – scoring as many pins as he could – even though Orical had pointed out that it was a waste of time because the only tables the Almonds were interested in were ones with a buffet on. Craptain limped to the finish with 19, unlike Hammer pulling 7 pins in the process to give us a comfortable lead of 24 as we entered the finishing straight.
Light-headed from the loss of blood Sparky struggled to shine as our lead ‘anker & Compact was called upon to deliver some of his renowned motivational encouragement: “come on you bleeder” may not quite have been what was expected but seemed to do the trick. Compact has been called quite a lot of things over the seasons, in fact I defy anyone to think of something new that he hasn’t, which is quite a challenge as he’s no longer in charge & we can call him anything we like now – although, as Jocky pointed out, that’s never stopped anybody before anyway - & whilst not the worst thing ever, being called a Sports Psychologist was a new one – if not only for being inoffensive – but only proposed so that referring to him as a psycho could be enjoyed I fear. Sparky rallied to get 21 pins up on the board & pull 5 on his oppo, & then it was all down to Pete to show us what he could do.
Blasting the theory out of the water that we either have to be 30 up or 10 down for Chuckle 1 not to play crap, C1 chased after MiniDisk’s 30 & succeeded in robbing him of sole Top Score honours – that should crush MiniDisk’s spirit for next week! Not content with that Pete said he was annoyed at missing with what he considered to be 2 good balls… Compact felt moved to reprimand him for complaining about scoring a 30, pointing out that we all get annoyed with things & have to put up with it. Pete’s retort of “like you, you mean” was a little harsh, but…
So, another win, this time by 32, for the Almonds, & no League match to play until Friday 4th January 2008, which will be at the Patchway RBL Social Club against the Legion Rams.
We do have another game next week – next round of the Knockout Cup – on our home alley Tuesday 18th December, but I don’t know who we are playing!!
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