I thought that the Almonds were a democratic society.  I don’t recall being invited to an AGM let alone an EGM, so can someone please explain how, or even why, Hammer has been allowed to worm his way back into the team?  I seem to remember we weren’t good enough for him, didn’t take things seriously enough (God forbid… where did he get that idea from?).  Either the Craptain has let the power of his position go to his head and is going by rule of autonomy, or he is protecting his tenuous position following threats of a coup from Compact & avoiding any sort of voting scenario.  That, or Conspiracy Pete has something to do with it.

And so beginneth the start of the 2006/2007 season, with the usual suspect Almonds gathering last Wednesday, 6/9, to find Hammer in residence and excited banter bouncing off the walls, echoing the ‘first day back at school’ feeling.  Amongst comparing holidays, tans & how we all spent the summer, discussion arose over our newly replaced Duck box – a vast improvement on last season’s only in regard to it actually having a lid and the fact that someone had stuck masking tape on it, on which to artfully write ‘Duck Box’ no doubt.  Trying to be helpful, I offered the use of either a very noisy tin box to rattle, which has been trialled successfully at summer skittles, or a spring-legged cat moneybox, thinking the latter would serve well to hold the ‘kitty’.  What started out as a ‘cute’ & amusing idea turned ugly when Barnesy had to lower the tone by announcing, way too loudly, that anyone suffering the fate of scoring a duck would get to stroke the pussy.  I expect he was only trying to help, but I don’t think Craptain’s pedantic correction of pointing out it would be Jen’s pussy was called for.  After such a euphoric bit of foreplay, I can see the reality being nothing but an anti-climax.

Our first match, as the away team on our home alley, was against Filton Wanderers – so called because of the fact they can’t keep their hands to themselves would be my interpretation of their name’s origin….  aRCe & Turk were first up, and probably wished they hadn’t been when their scores of 14 & 26 respectively failed to impress or make an impression on the 37 & 25 from the oppo, leaving us 22 down.  How excited was I, when having been picked to play 2^nd pair with Taffy (some might say excitement enough for any girl), I saw the size of the Wanderer’s pins & proceeded to knock them flying in a very satisfying fashion, reaching the heady heights of 30 with 1 up to go.  Taffy had a less successful inaugural outing and finished on a Legs 11, and whilst I had hoped for the glory of a tick in all the boxes on the averages sheet, the pressure of wanting that elusively high score – or was it the pressure of Wanderers’ hands applied to my person every time I fought my way to the alley, especially as I didn’t want to give ‘DK’ any excuse to go to town congratulating me on emulating his score of 37 – took its toll; I bottled it, the wheels fell off… all I got was a big fat X for my troubles.  However, I am told that my game is complemented by the arcing of my balls – perhaps someone can explain to me what that means?  I suspect it will have a sexual connotation as it sourced from peRV – and better to get a duck when it involves putting 10p in an old sweet tub than having to stroke my own pussy.

On the bright side, we only dropped 2 more pins to put us 24 behind.  Craptain utilised the second part of his youth policy together with his Wild Card and played Lodge with his own dear spouse, EN&T.  I think Lodge was more bovvered than he let on about scoring 16 when Turk had already put 26 on the board, and it was amusing to observe the different techniques the playing duos’ ‘spouses’ employed in motivating their loved ones:  ‘Chantelle’ stroked Lodge’s arm, murmured praise or platitudes to him & smiled sweet encouragement; Reg threw his arms in the air, told Cath her play was crap & gave her a disgusted look.  Lodge finished on 16, EN&T 18, and the 6 pin drop left us 30 down as we went into the second half.

Which leads me nicely into a small complaint.  Why do most of our team insist on spending so much time in front of the TV screen showing the football, instead of offering their team-mates appropriate encouragement and showing solidarity by being present during play, which is why they’ve come out in the first place?  Answers to be posted on our lush new website….

peRV & Orical were next up & the jammy bar stewards managed to get a WPTP for pulling back 7 pins on the game.    peRV turned up in unnecessarily short shorts, of which Sparky showed his appreciation by enquiring if they were silk, & I was quite grateful when they drew the focus of some Wanderers’ interest from yours truly.  There was a slightly unnerving moment when peRV was going through his prep routine and tilted himself backwards, but happily the only balls we saw were those spun down the alley.  He finished on 24, and Orical had to prove that anything Wiggle could do he could do better by getting 31.  So, 23 down Craptain made the questionable decision to give Hammer a game, pairing him with Sparky.

Rumour has it that Hammer didn’t win the averages for the team he abandoned us for last season, which is why he’s come crawling back to us – there were plenty of calls for him to return to the other team when he started with a duck.  Just desserts in my opinion, for having shouted his mouth off about my own misfortune with that particular animal.  Having “started off nervous”, Hammer admitted to “being desperate” as the Return of the Hammer was proving to be less than glorious all round.  I didn’t much like the tone used when Pete tried to goad him into excellence by pointing out that “even Jen” could get a 30, but thought it completely uncalled for when Hammer sneered “it’s getting so bad I am getting advice from Jen now”, when all I’d done was suggest he might find it useful to hit the front pin first. The observation was made that Hammer suffers from a lack of diplomacy, although that’s not quite how it was put… now what was it that was actually said?  Oh yeah, I remember, “he’s a tosser”. 

Hammer ended up on 26, and by his own admission, didn’t deserve anywhere near that.  Sparky got 27 & their play was enough to pull back a further 13 on the game at this point to leave us only 10 in arrears as ‘ankers Craptain & Chuckle1 took us to the finish line.  Despite being told we didn’t need him and there was no point in him turning up, Compact couldn’t resist the lure of the evening and joined us for the latter part of the night’s play, so I don’t suppose you can fault him on his dedication to the team.  Probably he didn’t want to miss out on all the compliments and praise that come his way so easily….  having expressed his opinion that he loves our alley, Sparky challenged him by calling him a liar, adding “pants on fire” for good measure.  We look forward to more such electrifying exchanges throughout the season!!

Our Craptain dished up a veritable feast of a Captain’s innings, scoring 32 – I suspect he was disappointed Cath had left by now so that he couldn’t share his success with her… i.e.  rub her nose in it.  Chuckle1, aka Conspiracy Pete, should possibly entertain the idea of changing his Almond name (by popular demand) to Slimbridge instead of the Chuckle moniker, because he isn’t giving anyone anything much to laugh about with his skittling.  He was heard to mutter in a sulky fashion not befitting a former averages champ “I’m not playing no more” – obviously that sort of defeatist talk runs in the Bowers clan!, whatever happened to Chuckle 2? – but we all know he doesn’t mean it.  Pete’s 19 dropped us 6 pins to leave us losing our first game by 16.  Considering my ‘little friend’ had delighted me earlier in the evening with how the other team he plays for had won by 76 pins the other night, perhaps we should thank heaven for small mercies, take it on the chin and re-group for next week – now that we’ve warmed up we’ll be on fire for sure.

See you all back at our home alley next Tuesday 12/9 – 8pm kick off against the Premiers.