Week 9 - June 4th - Prestwich Bowling Club

On an almost perfect evening for Bowls we travelled the short distance with the sweet smell of last weeks 13-0 win still fresh in our nostrils. Could a repeat be on the Cards?? The Prestwich lads were still looking for their 1st win of the season & surely their run of bad luck could not last too much longer, with 3 or 4 new faces in the ranks, drafted in from their B team, were they a sleeping giant about to awaken & de-rail our title hopes??

We were given an instant reality check, when 4 of the 1st 5 Hollinhurst blocks went behind & Charlie & Tommy T in particular struggling with their games & fell well behind the pace. Neither fully recovered & Tommy fell to a heavy defeat by Dave Sandiford (21-8) who wasn’t pushed too hard for a deserved win. Charlie rallied late against Stafford Morley & clawed his way back to 16 despite never being close to his best form.

Duds finally got his act together & limped home against a battling Stuart Cameron who fought hard with some excellent Bowling, at 15 across it was anybody’s game but he eventually went down to 18

Frank Kay has found some good form & a victory against Gareth Martin will hopefully kickstart his stuttering season with a prolonged run of games, well done Frank.

John Pearson had a similar battle with Steve Dixon, JP took an early lead & at 9-0 up looked to be cruising. Steve dug deep & John looked like a man about to clutch defeat from the jaws of victory & ran out a relieved 21-18 winner.

At the half way stage we were 3-2 up, but 95- 87 down on the aggregate, we needed 5 solid second half performances to retrieve the Agg & keep some distance between us & Hopwood A. With an arguably stronger 2nd 5 blocks, Prestwich must have sensed a possible victory was in the air when both Wrighty & Razor fell to heavy defeats at the hands of the Professional Yorkshireman & Steve Blaymire respectively to 12 & 7. Wrighty was far from his best, whilst Razor assures me he was “robbed”, “bowled out of his skin” & “did nowt wrong” strangely Duds marked his card & thought he played like a “T**t”

With the game slipping through our fingers & the Agg now a distant memory, we feared the worst, but we finally reversed our faltering fortunes with 3 wins in the final games. Eggy, Kenny & myself managed to close the game out at 6 winners to 4, but frustratingly losing the agg by 10 chalks 169 – 179. Final score 9 – 7 to Hollinhurst.

Well done Prestwich, how you haven’t won a match yet off strong performances like you produced against us remains a mystery!!!

With the season now at the half way stage, hopefully we can get back to double figures next week against Cheetham Hill