Week 12 – 4th July – Prestwich Cons – Home

We started tonight’s game under a sky laden with thick black clouds, was this an omen?? Were the storm clouds gathering both literally & proverbially on our season?? Tonight’s game on a sluggish surface against the resurgent Con’s would prove to be a true test of our mettle. Fresh from their best away result in living memory, the Prestwich lad’s confidence was sky high & they were surely out for revenge for the early season mauling we inflicted on them in the reverse fixture many weeks ago……………………
Duds slipped to second in the averages after last weeks loss in Heywood & whoever he met tonight would surely feel the backlash!! Jeff Smidman must have cursed the draw as they met again & although Jeff had an off night in the previous game, he raised his performance markedly & bowled well enough to deserve far more than the 9 chalks he managed tonight.
The 1st five games threw together some interesting pairings, the pick of them being Tommy T. against Chris Harris. Tommy knew he had his hands full as they mirrored each others scoring to lie 10 across at 14 ends. In a game too close to call, Chris held his nerve & crept ahead as the winning post came into sight & just squeezed Tommy out to 19, hard luck Tommy, you drew the short straw!!! Sorry Chris, no pun intended.
Not the start I had hoped for, but with Waggy up 14-8 against Colin Laithwaite & Charlie cruising to a 20-12 lead against Bill Harris, good times were just around the corner & the Hollinhurst title challenge was back on track…….. Charlie made life very difficult for himself as the elusive final chalk refused to appear, Bill battled hard to eventually go down to 19 against a very relieved Charlie. Waggy hit a brick wall as Colin turned the Screws with a solid break of 10 which broke Tommy’s resolve as he eventually went down to 17.
The Cons had obviously not read the script as they put on a great display of disciplined bowling on a surface which seemed to suit them far more than Hollinhurst, with far too many short woods failing to register on the card.
One guy in particular, showed a total lack of respect for our previous impeccable home form & deserves every credit for the performance of the night by some margin. Alan Bailey against John Pearson in previous seasons would have been a banker of the shortest odds, with only John’s winning margin being worthy of discussion.
Playing full corners on John’s favourite mark, Alan bowled John off the green & JP trailed in Alans wake 16-4, Alan was on the money every end & John was looking at his heaviest for some considerable time. Talk about a game of two halves & not a Football insight, Alan must have been as sick as a Parrot as John somehow plumbed the depths of his experience to muster a 13 break, with only a 2 chalk reply from Alan. The script would have one final twist in the tale as John then gifted Alan 2 chalks but drew back to all but across, only to let a yard wood from Alan grab the decisive point of the game. JP gave himself a mountain to climb with a great come-back but Alan is surely the Con’s most improved player & deserved the plaudits of both his team-mates & the Hollinhurst lads.
We were on the Ropes again for the second week running & trailing 3-2 down was certainly not part of the game plan. Could we deliver the knock-out punch in round 2??
Thankfully both Kenny & Frank came out fighting & ran out comfortable winners against Tommy Toone & Barney to 12 & 10 respectively, just the tonic to spur us on to a late rally in the final 3 games & a respectable points haul with the agg now looking safe.
Wrighty had a ding-dong battle with Conchie & at 17 across the game could have swung either way, but to the relief of the Hollinhurst faithful he crept home without Alan adding to his tally. With the game now at 5-3 in our favour & the agg safe, I needed 2 more wins from Eggy & Razor to maintain my target of 10 points from every home game to ensure a serious title challenge.
Sadly it wasn’t to be, Razor was taking a hiding from an in-form John Woodard & at 12-1 down, Bladesy looked out of sorts with some errant bowling & you could see him mentally adding page 1093 to the “Blades Almanac of Bowling Excuses”. He rallied late in the game to go down to 14, never fully recovering from Woody’s flying start.
The final game was notable for the see-sawing of scoring with 5 & 6 end breaks on both sides. With Eggy lying 14-13 up, Alan went on a 6 end, 7 point break to lie all-but 14, Eggy dug deep & mounted his own charge to bring the game back to all-but across & when I last heard was still in a state of deep depression when he conjured up 2 no-balls to hand Alan the game with a yard wood. Eggy has since sought counseling & is currently in the next Bed to Razor in the Bowling Wing of the Priory. Both are making a good recovery, Eggy is on an intravenous drip of Smiths Bitter & Razor has started Bullshitting again!!!!!!!
We were second best tonight with no excuses, the away team played us off the Green, hopefully they will maintain this form against our nearest rivals.
Final result 5-5 & 195-173 winners of the agg, for an 8.0 – 7.5 win to Hollinhurst.
Knock-out Cup next week at the Top Green, we must try harder!!!!!!!!