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As us Almonds slowly but surely assembled for Tuesday’s fixture against Trymside on our home alley, little did we know what fate held in store for us, or the treats that were to be laid at our feet, delivered from the Hand of God himself, our very own Mr. Ducklas.
Vice Craptain (hereafter referred to as VC) swaggered in with balls in hand and immediately started throwing his weight about, proffering no thanks to Jocky who had already taken care of erecting the pins in formation, just issuing orders for names to be placed on the board and the game to be got under way. It was never disclosed why our Craptain handed over the reins to the Pretender to the Throne, but we resiliently absorbed being led by Compact. Promising a whole shake up to the Almonds order of play, & enticing everyone with the prospect of handling and playing with his newly shined balls – an experience like what we had never experienced before - VC set Jocky & Orical the task of starting us on the road to glory.
Jocky played right into VC’s hands by pronouncing “there’s lovely, there’s beeyootiful” about the way the balls rolled down the alley – how much he was paid is between the 2 – but Orical wasn’t having any & stuck steadfastly to his usual game, carefully avoiding hitting too many pins to prove a point that he couldn’t be impressed by another man’s ability to shine his balls for public acclaim. Between them they pulled 4 pins to give us an early lead, earn themselves a well played the pair, and not make a blind bit of difference to their Average with 23 and 12 respectively.
VC pitted himself against his old adversary peRV next and they started out well enough, prompting gullible ladies from the opposition to mistakenly assume we had our best players on – oh! how we laughed!! For a while there though, it did appear that we were watching some sort of resurrection as both scored 8s and were well on the way to 30 pluses mid-way through their ups. The observation was made that had CD hit 8s all season we would have been staying up, and therefore the blame should be placed at his feet for our downfall, and suitably crushed VCs wheels fell off & he produced a trio of ducks to finish on 19, leaving his previously impressed lady admirers to comment he had sadly peaked too early – the story of his life allegedly. Disappointingly, he didn’t get the Right Hump at this point, but took his medicine stoically & focused his energy to cheering on his partner to an assured 30 as he sat at 29 and counting for his last up.
Indeed, peRV had the backing of the whole Team ringing in his ears as he stood poised to be brilliant. Not everyone responds well to this degree of intense interest, and sure enough peRV buckled under pressure! But it was his own fault really that the cheering and cat calling increased ten-fold as he missed first with his 1st , second with his 2nd, and third with his 3rd ball. I’m not completely sure, but there might have been a smidgeon of glee in the air from the Team, that they’d succeeded in encumbering peRV enough to put him off his stroke – not an easy task I’ve heard.
Despite these setbacks, peRV & Vice pulled another 14 pins to give us a lead of 18 and something to do with our hands whilst we eagerly anticipated our turn with Chris’ balls, applauding them a WPTP. Taffy & Barnesy Junior were the third time luckies, and for a while it looked like they were going to be responsible for turning the game around the Wrong Way. But some sort of Guardian Angel was looking over our VC, and in spite of Taffy’s best efforts to sabotage his His ‘Master Plan’ by only scoring 4, he and Junior, with his 19, still managed to pull a further 2 pins & get the WPTP clap!
A comfortable 20 up, VC still denied me my turn at his balls, preferring to build my anticipation and keep me in suspenders until the very last moment. Instead, Lodge & Sparky were paired up to do their worst and this inspired pairing of youth & treachery doubled our lead, and then 1, to 41. Lodge stormed his way to 27, giving himself & the rest of us a nasty moment in the process when he fumbled about in his trousers to adjust an uncomfortable interference – happily it turned out we were under a misapprehension, and the “something hard” he was going to take out and relieve himself of was his mobile phone. Phew!
Sparky scored 22 and also introduced me to a new pin formation, Roadworks. Definition?, pins all over the place… He made good use of his electrician’s language by describing said pins as fatherless little souls, which made a refreshing change to hearing talk of “have sex and travel”, but there is no truth in the rumour that he has been sacked as electrician for the prison service for refusing to fix the electric chair, having claimed it was a f***ing death trap.
With another WPTP emanating around the room, & increasing euphoria, a barely able to contain himself VC continued his assault on Craptain’s toes & put Turk on as partner to our biggest ‘anker, Chuckle 1. Turk got called out as an emergency, & whilst it remains unknown how he spent the earlier part of his evening, it obviously suited him because he stormed to top score with 34. Chuckle 1 clocked up a more modest 20, claiming he didn’t have the motivation to pull the stops out, preferring to conserve his energy for working Barnesy hard on their Easter holiday no doubt… Bouncing Bomb extraordinaire didn’t even grace us with her presence on Tuesday – another Ann Summers extravaganza no doubt.
With our lead now increased by 10 to 51, our win over Trymside was surely secure. However, this Wiggle’s nerves were by now stretched to breaking point over the responsibility of having to play Anchor, and VC being fully aware of my discomfort didn’t disappoint my expectation of his consideration when he put me on the board to play very last of all…. I am sure he was only saving the best for last. On the plus side, I did get to play with the Craptain, an honour not bestowed on me often, & I played safe by keeping it friendly and only matching his own 23 pins! Having waited so long to get my hands around Chris’ shiny balls I was quite frankly disappointed, but being the Almond who pulled the most pins against their opponent – 21, for those of you interested in figures of that sort – and half of the pair who pulled the most amount of pins all evening – 29, for those of you interested in figures of that sort – as well as securing a full house of WPTP, helped me get over it.
Taffy’s mean side surfaced during this finale to VC’s ‘coup d’etat’, and Wiggle for one was shocked at his callous delight and very unsportsman-like behaviour as he did a victory dance when Trymside’s 2nd ‘anker romped home on 2, relieving him of the ignominy of hitting the least pins all night, although he still takes those honours away with him until next week with his 4 – for those of you interested in figures of that sort.
Not one to labour a point or seek validation, VC didn’t rub Craptain’s nose in it at all, hardly, well much, when he politely enquired whether Reg had ever won by as many pins as 80 when he was in charge. I cannot be certain, but I think Craptain Reg may have erred on the side of caution and refused to comment. Credit where credit is due though, Compact’s unorthodox approach to management paid off and he did lead us to victory – and even thanked us very nicely for our efforts afterwards!
No one can ever accuse the Almonds of not having ambition, motivation or positivity flowing through their veins. Even though we are still going down, our new target is to reduce the gap between us and the next team of losers! There is also a wealth of personal battles to be won amongst the Averages, jostling for superior positions – some of us aiming to stay on top, others hoping to get out from underneath!
Our next match is on Monday 10th April at St. Teresa’s Social Club, Filton, against The Milkmen. Sorry, that should read Unigate.
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