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The Almonds inaugural match in Division 2 of the new 2005/2006 season took place on Friday 9/9 against SECA at the Bourne End Inn – better known as the pub that serves up sausage and chips!
In the usual ‘keen as mustard’ Almonds way, it took a while for our Team to assemble throughout the evening, but with the exception of Barnesy (party) peRV (black tie do) & Charlie (AWOL) we did end up with a full house – even Mrs. Craptain honoured us with her presence, although I suspect this was more to do with the promise of seeing the Young Guns than a desire to reinstate herself as one of the Team….. the arrival of the Magnificent 7 was indeed a joy to behold as they swaggered in, hitched up their just-about-to-drop-off jeans and arranged themselves in a dishevelled fashion around the saloon.
Craptain, unanimously voted back in for another term of office despite/in spite of a half-arsed coup attempt by the Duck King, which gained no more support than a broken truss, picked on/selected Jen & Lodge as first pair. I don’t think I answered the Craptain’s rallying cry of ‘show him the ropes Jen’ in quite the way he intended, when after a relatively good start the wheels fell off my particular wagon and I produced a couple of ducks, scoring only 15 in total. I blame Lodge, because he wasn’t paying due attention and kept firing the balls on their merry way like he was still playing ‘all-in’, so not wanting to crush his youthful enthusiasm I held myself back – I didn’t want to show him up too bad first time out, did I?!! Lodge scored 5, making our grand total 20, which was precisely how many pins we also dropped.
Unfortunately, I have to admit to my concentration on the game being broken by the dubious pleasure of having Mark decide to sit next to me and proceed to witter on in my ear incessantly… amongst his many pearls of wisdom was the fact we should adopt him as our Team Mascot: whatever, but he’s not allowed to sit by me. Or ask me questions. Or tell me I am crap at skittles. PhoeBe – please teach your son some charm!!
The Welsh Duo were 2nd pair and showed off something chronic to drag us back into the lead by 8 pins. Neither escaped without a duck but Tim’s 19 and Jocky’s (joint) top score of 29 were much more respectable scores and earned them a well deserved “well played the pair”. Next up we had PeB & CD, whose commitment to the Team has to be questioned as they couldn’t disappear fast enough afterwards. Their scores of 26 & 15 respectively kept us in the lead by 3 as our 4th pair stepped up, Craptain choosing his other Lester to chaperone the trouble maker of the 7, Douglas Junior.
George was obviously looking to make a big impression on his debut, and did that in spectacular fashion by sending a skittle ball down the alley with such pace it shot off through the window having swerved across the alley and connected with a pin… this feat, rather than inducing remorse for the broken window and lost ball, delighted the Young Guns, who celebrated with much whooping and hand-slapping, elevating GD to Leader status for sure. They did volunteer to go in search of the ball, until they learned the territory was worse than fighting their way through the Amazon, to appease our Craptain, who was already beginning to worry about how we’d get through the season one ball short – Reg soon cheered up, however, when he found out that George had inadvertently used one of the opposition’s balls instead of ours!! We are not sure what state this leaves our already battered reputation in with the Teams from the Bourne End… this lot probably wish we hadn’t turned up to their game now!!
George soldiered on to score 10 against JL’s 20, but despite his best effort’s to put SECA off their game, GD had to accept his tactics were questionable and only saw the Almonds drop behind again by 10 pins.
aRCe & Craptain followed that act, and whilst Reg rose against adversity and put in a Craptain’s innings to match Jocky’s 29 and pull back 1 pin, aRCe was obviously missing CD, as well as the front pin, and only shook off ‘summer skittles’ fever after his first 4 ups of ducks to hit 11 with his last 2.
So as our first ‘ankers of the season took to the alley we only needed to pull back a further 10 pins to win the game. In the hands of Sparky & PhoeBe this should have been easy, but even our Top Guns have ‘off’ days, and this day was one! Sparky scored 18, PheoBe could produce no more than an unlucky 13, and with the enemy saving their best to last we dropped another 20 pins to end up coming 2nd by 29.
Not exactly a blistering start to the season, and with possible costs for damages being claimed, not an affluent one either!! Still, on the plus side, not only did we get our own tray of sausage baps and basket of chips, we got to eat up the leftovers from the opposition too – I’m only surprised it wasn’t laced with shards of glass! It has to be noted, however, that in a retaliatory gesture of malice, the barmaid threw our duck box lid out with the rubbish… we could counter sue, Sue!
Next game takes place on Tuesday 13/9 on our home alley, against the Nomads.
Pete & Tim are both unavailable, Phil will be late (as will Mascot, thank Heaven for small mercies…..).
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