This last Match Report nearly never happened, because according to my own husband there is only one person out there who reads it anyway so is there really any point.  Harsh.  Still, as that one person will probably wish I hadn't written it, I felt it was worth the crack !  And so for my one remaining fan - & any random stranger who happens across this site - if you are sitting comfortably, then I'll begin...

Whether in recognition of his Vice skills or as an intended Divine Retribution, our Craptain stood down & left Compact in charge of leading us to victory in our final game of the 2007/08 season.  It was odd being the visitors on our home alley, although it did have its advantages as far as The Boys were concerned – they didn’t have far to go to the bar!  As we also had to set up a little soup kitchen for our Last (game) Supper it couldn’t have been better planned:  with the important business of refreshments being bought & the curry put on to heat, it was on with the game against Filton Wanderers.

Pondering the question ‘if one synchronised swimmer drowns do all the rest have to drown too?’, there have been times over this season when if one Almond had a bad night it appeared that the rest would suffer the same fate, our match against Greystoke Sports being a moot example – with the exception of SavvyDisk doing her best to dig us out of the hole the rest of us were determined to fall into!  Happily this was not to be the case on our exit from Division 3, as we went up & out with more of a pyrotechnic display than we could have hoped, even if that success didn’t quite take us to the top – despite Mrs Craptain winning her tenner on the football cards, that wretched match on 11^th April may well have been our doom for skittling world domination!!   

AndyMan & Jocky were the lucky skittlers to play first pair.  In what I can only describe as a blatant attempt to show off & everyone else up by setting a high standard, AndyMan stormed his way to a 35 - & how he cursed & kicked himself for throwing a dcuk in along the way, rueing the fact he could have secured his best score ever on his last game:  an interesting fact is that on his debut for the Almonds, AndyMan – then playing as TimIffy – scored 34, & only missed a potential 40 after receiving the Chris of Death!  Start as you mean to go on, & never with a 7!!  You’d have thought he’d have learned something over the weeks…  but then we’ve obviously all got ‘Dory’ memories, otherwise why would any of us keep going back for more punishment week after week?!  The unassuming Jocky, in contrast, was trying to contain his own excitement about possibly reaching double figures, after his 5^th up saw him on 9, fervently hoping Compact didn’t notice & say anything to jinx it – namely give him the CoD!  Left in peace, Jocky delivered a brilliant 7 to finish, giving himself a respectable score of 16. 

Heady with the exhilaration of only being 2 down, there was shock, disbelief & more than a smattering of glee when Compact put Craptain & Chuckles on 2^nd pair.  Told they were lucky to be playing at all after their desertion of the troops for holiday over the previous 2 weeks – during which Barnesy sustained an injury when Chuckles tipped their ‘catamaran’ over whilst out for a spin around the bay:  Craptain obviously had his doubts about the authenticity of this story, commenting that pedaloes can be an absolute bugger to operate – Compact only reconsidering dropping them when a quick count-up revealed his hand was forced, & with Sparky’s triumphant “get ‘em on early” ringing in the air, Craptain & Chuckles accepted their fate gracefully & got on with it.  Hammer, disgusted with this turn of events, refused to watch & took refuge in the bar, threatening mutiny if there was even a suggestion of trying to play him any earlier than 6 pints in – his whole ‘raison d’etre’ had been impinged by not being played with Chuckles in a head to head for the averages. 

In an ironic quirk of fate, far from phasing either of them & acting as the punishment it was intended, playing early seemed to suit our intrepid travellers:  our Craptain excelled himself by scoring 41 , taking a 9 on the way, whilst Chuckles, outdid him by scoring x2 9s, but he ‘only’ managed to put 33 on the board!  Had it not been for Compact’s intervention, this might only have been 32, but never one to miss an opportunity to create confusion & anarchy, Compact drew attention to the FW scorer’s inaccuracy & not only got us the extra pin, but put off the FW oppo into the bargain!  How smug was Compact’s smile as he saw our 38 pin lead added to the board, & safe in the knowledge we had a healthy lead he risked putting Taffy & Wiggle on next. 

Taffy threw his first ball to a less than capacity crowd, most of the Almonds having left the room at that point for some reason – probably going into the main bar to torment Hammer on his self imposed exile a little bit, having been denied the pleasure on the alley – & as a result it knocked his confidence badly & he only scraped up 9 for his last effort; although he won the admiration of his peers by scoring a magnificent Archie on his 5^th up! , & for the audacity of accusing Wiggle of leaving him to do all the pulling!  Personally, I think I pulled only too well….    Anyhoo, far be it for Wiggle to ever blow her own trumpet, but The Boys were almost impressed by the ‘good 2^nd ball’ she threw that took out the Quarter a treat along with several other pins:  this praise was marred only very slightly by the fact it was actually her first ball… sarcastic little sh*ts.  Wiggle’s concentration left quite a lot to be desired & at one point she was so busy scheming about what should happen when Hammer played she missed her cue to play one of her ups, promptly getting rewarded with a dcuk!  Still, it was worth it to have come up with an idea that amused The Boys, for a few minutes at any rate, namely everyone leaving the alley when Hammer went on to play, echoing his absence from the alley & refusal to support his fellow Almonds.  Maybe Hammer’s doctor told him to avoid any unnecessary excitement….  which would also explain why he started supporting Bristol Rovers

With Taffy’s 9 & Wiggle’s 21 not quite matching the scores of the FW’s, we dropped 2 pins; however, we were forgiven as we were still 36 ahead of the game, & instead of sucking oranges – or even lemons! – at half time, the Almonds broke out the curry & taters!  I’m not sure why my polite interest as to how many jars Compact had to open to fill the cooking pot caused such stuttering flabbergasted offence, but it was worth every syllable.  He’d already used gastronomic blackmail on the barman to make sure we got served drinks first, & once the Almonds had more than readily tucked into the feast laid out before them Compact invited the FWs to help themselves too:  once Barnesy had left enough time for them all to sample the wares, she announced with relish that it should only take a few minutes for the spiked food to take effect – & they thought she was joking!

With a healthy lead in place to cushion any damage, the two Exocets, Orical & Compact, opened the second half.  Conniving little bar steward that he is, Orical made sure he put in a concerted last ditch effort this week to scrape up enough fractions of a pin to pip Wiggle in the Averages, which he did marginally by scoring 28.  Better than that, having intimidated his oppo into scoring 6, he pulled 22 pins on the game, which with the 6 Compact pulled put us a stonking 64 pins into the lead!  The FWs didn’t know what hit them.  Our VC was unable to drag himself any further away than runner up to bottom of the Averages , but he did put in an above average performance for this last game, scoring 25 & befitting his status as Vice Craptain even took a 9 – just to rub the salt into the wound that he didn’t do that all the rest of the season!!

And so we moved on to the turn of Hammer, ably assisted by the hirsute & football-kit garbed peRV.  Trying to rise above the taunts about his tan, or lack of it, & not bite (as the mosquitoes did in reckless Antiguan abandon, leaving Hammer wishing Noah had swatted the two trying to board the Ark – although he would’ve been robbed of anything to model his voice on then), or stomp his hoof for that matter when aRCe said “surely he does enough of that at home” in response to Barnesy’s disclosure that Hammer couldn’t be persuaded to go horse riding on holiday, Hammer had to watch his hopes of usurping Chuckles from top of the Averages get blown away as gustily as Rovers’ hopes of even catching sight of the top…  With no direct competition against Chuckles or Sparky, Hammer just couldn’t find the extra oomph to get anywhere near a 30, let alone the 40 that might have done him some good.  Finishing on 24, he dropped 12 pins & was deemed to be so unlucky he’d probably go down with equine flu…

What to say about peRV…  at least he turns up to play, even if he does dress stupid?   Studying him at length when he took his turn to play, getting the full benefit of his sartorial inelegance, Chuckles was moved to comment we ought to introduce a dress code for next season – most of us thought we already had one, although our shirts have enjoyed varying fortunes through the season, some surviving to look almost as good as new whilst others have paled into insignificance & / or shrunk – unless, God forbid, the torsos they are designed to contain have become bigger!!  Finally beating the CoD & hitting a 9 as well to bow out on a 36, peRV was impeRVious to the insults that abounded , although it was noted he’d abandoned the uber trainers of the week before – reputedly on a roundabout in Bradley Stoke.  And his bonhomie did waver a little when a guy from the opposition came to speak to him about football & opened by saying peRV’s team wasn’t doing so well this season – nice bit of shafting!  Compact asked the guy if he’d come over just to put peRV down, but far from being a show of support it was only to clarify his intentions because if that was all he’d come over for, Compact wanted to make sure he joined the queue.

Our pre ‘ankers efforts saw our lead diminished to 63, & without even a mention of dcik sucking – hands otherwise engaged making up for lost Pussy time & The Boys not wanting to take anything for granted – we waited to see if our proper ‘ankers, aRCe & Sparky, could take us home to a win!  aRCe had his Mr Angry persona in full flood within a few minutes of his arrival at the start of the evening’s proceedings, proving that the anger management sessions he’d started at the beginning of the season have worked a treat – he can manage being angry at will!  Being an ‘anker brought out the best in him, ish, & he powered his way to a 30 whilst intimidating his oppo enough to pull 13 pins.  Sparky, probably suffering from the same Separation Anxiety Syndrome as Hammer, struggled to be brilliant all of the time, getting a nice little pattern going on the board with his rollercoaster scoring of 8 x 7 x 8….    we were all agog to see whether he rounded things off nicely with a 3^rd dcuk, but of course just to be awkward he went & scored – just the 1 though, with his last ball if I remember rightly, just to take the piss.   Sparky therefore finished his season on a 24, helping to increase our win to one by a magnificent 79 pins – talk about going out with a bang!

As we all helped clear the debris away & prepared to leave the alley for the last time this season, sensing the team was high on spirits as well as beer the Barman asked if we were taking part in the Summer skittles league – & if not, why not?!  Never one to miss a trick, Compact got his priorities right & said he’d need to know what the prize money was before making a commitment – it has, after all, to be worth his getting out of bed for!  At this moment in time the jury is still out – I presume when us plebs need to know word will filter out, & if we don’t hear I guess we won’t be one of the chosen few!  Most seemed to be in two minds about whether the practice of the Summer skittles or complete bed rest til September would be more beneficial to skittling prowess in the new season – watch this space!

Match Reporter signing off…  it’s been a pleasure doing business wiv ya!