|
|
|
MR 15th November - Artistic License |
|
|
|
Where or when did it all go wrong on Wednesday in our match against the Artists? Personally, I think it was when we bothered turning up – aRCe had the right idea, making out he’s been told the wrong evening and begging a previous engagement when called to arms. With our Craptain in a foreign land and our Vice Craptain shirking his delegated responsibilities because of a pressing engagement in Swanage, I found myself charged with taking control of the Almonds – or at least “getting us started”. This would have been flattering if I hadn’t found out later that Compact had exhausted other avenues before getting desperate enough to call me – it appears I will only do when his preferred options don’t pan out. As instructed, I put Turk & Minidisc on first pair, so that they could scarper as soon as and salvage something of a good evening for themselves. With a lot of effing and blinding, Turk fought his way to a 20, whilst Minidisc put on a show of pants rather than prowess to droop home with 17. However, happily this less than auspicious start saw us in the lead by 7 pins. Planning to sacrifice myself in favour of one of one of the boys and concentrate my efforts on strategy so as not to let Compact down – still being blissfully unaware at this point that I was not first choice delegate – I put Taffy on with Lodge. Feeling a bit more confident because of our early lead, I pep talked all the boys about giving me their all, (not letting me down or I’d have to give them a hard time, make them suffer), as I’d never hear the end of it from Compact otherwise. Unfortunately, this didn’t have quite the desired effect, and I can’t be sure but you’d almost think they played badly on purpose… there were whispers they might have taken me more seriously if I’d been wearing leather, thigh high boots & cracking a whip.  Lodge struggled to get control of his game and added 10 to the board, Taffy chalked up 17 with too much levity and conferring with the rabble going on for my liking, but someone was looking down on me with pity because the Artists didn’t fare any better and it wasn’t too disheartening to find ourselves 1 pin behind. By now I’d been cruelly robbed of the erroneous belief that I was Compact’s Chosen 1, so smarting from the sting of that particular cut and then finding out that aRCe was going to be a no-show, I had a knee jerk reaction to put myself on next knowing I’d play badly and there was nothing Compact could do about it, & Jocky got picked on to accompany me. You may or may not know, but it takes an awful lot of concentration, determination & nerve to even attempt to play with a knife stuck in your back. I’m surprised I even managed to hit 6 pins under the weight of it, but I soldiered on through adversity for the sake of the team. Jocky was too scared to score well lest I unleash my own pain at his expense, so he clocked up a modest 13, and as I didn’t hear any sarcastic barracking from the boys I can only assume they thought I was suffering enough too. All except Orical, who delighted in amusing his mates at my expense by snickering about how he wouldn’t have to worry about me beating him that night, although he was quite careful not to let me hear him. Either Barnesy was looking after my best interests by imparting this information or hell bent on inflicting a 2nd cut and undermining my confidence further when she realised she’d been dropped from the squad. If you weren’t there, you could be forgiven for thinking we must have been miles behind with those scores, but divine intervention in the form of sketchy Artists meant that we only had a smattering of 8 pins to pull back at half time. Compact arrived just as the dust was settling and ignorant of the fact I was aware of his duplicity he hid what I can now see as a patronising gesture & reluctance to be associated with a failing team behind a magnanimous invitation for me to remain holding the reins, and therefore the blame in the event of an irretrievable match. The game actually all went wrong on the 4th pair, and therefore Compact has to accept culpability as an accessory. Orical & peRV could easily have salvaged the game at this point, but with Orical so full of swagger & arrogance at the prospect of easily beating Wiggle’s 6 he couldn’t hit jack shit, and peRV  all repressed with trying to hold his tongue in instead of letting it roam free, we now found ourselves pontooned at 21 pins down after their 6 & 14 were chalked up. By now any benevolent spirits had deserted me, because if they’d still been around I’m sure they would have bestowed upon me the pleasure of seeing Orical finish on 2 instead of the 6 he managed to salvage at his eleventh hour… I hope he feels assuaged of exclusion from the MR this week.  And so, as we limped towards the finish post, I put Compact on with Hammer in a vain attempt to leave our ‘ankers with a match to play for. From the way Compact was carrying on about not having eaten for days and being near starving point I was surprised he had any energy left to lift the balls let alone fire them down the alley, but he found the strength from somewhere, if not the accuracy of hitting target. He did hit 14, Hammer 24, and although this was the highest scoring pair so far it wasn’t enough to stop the downward slide and with a further 6 pins lost we found ourselves 27 down as our ‘ankers picked up the challenge laid out before them. All night I’d had to put up with recalcitrant boys, Hammer banging on endlessly about the missing match report – despite me taking the trouble to print it off and bring it with me for the Website virgins – and now Sparky started playing up worse, complaining about being kept out late and having to play past his bedtime instead of looking at it as a new opportunity, and what a fuss when I put him on as 2nd ‘anker to Chuckle1! With threats of him having a word with Craptain ringing in my ears, I watched as C1 took top score with 28 & Sparky matched Hammer’s 24 to take joint 2nds. I might not have inspired, coaxed or honed the best performance from the tools I had to work with, but at least I took on the challenge even if I failed dismally to deliver. If nothing else, at least my timing of playing Sparky resulted in his first stroke of the Pussy, which put the smile back on his face!  Next week we play on Wednesday 22/11 at the Civil Service Club on Filton Avenue – this will be our first round match of the Knockout Cup. Our next League game will be on our home alley, Tuesday 28/11, against the Bohemians.
|
|
Home 
Match Reports 