JUNIORS JOIN THE SENIORS AT WORTHING

Played at Denham B.C  on a beautiful day for bowling the County U25 team beat their counterparts from the Bucks CBA on both rinks winning 44--21

P Reynolds -Ladygate, M Larman-Ashford. C Hill-Normand Park, & J Gibbs(Paddington) won 21--11

with R Southgate-Harrow, A Tanner-Ashford, N Edwards-Bounds Green & C Cleaver City of London won 23-10

We arrived to the smell of bacon being cooked and the green being cut, all the players were on time, in fact we had to wait for some members of the home team and the game started at approx 10.40 am, it was agreed at the pre match talk to try and keep it tight for the first few ends without dropping any big scores.

This the lads managed to do in fact after 5 ends Chris's rink was up 7-1 and Jamie's rink drawing 3-3.

Both our front ends were very consistent the only time in the 1st 10 ends when it looked like we may have dropped a score was in the 6th end when Chris was 5 down, he played a couple of yards on into the head and got the shot, perfect result, this meant that after 10ends we had increased the lead to 9 with Chris's rink up 10-6 and Jamie leading 9-5, it could have been more with Jamie’s rink holding a 6, when their skip fired, and after the dust had settled found we were 1 down on a measure.

The lead had increased to 11 by the 16th end Cleaver up 17-10 and Gibbs up 14-10, then the team manager's rallying call , last 5 ends, game won and lost in the last 5, concentration , execution and result and as in the past because of the pressure we were putting on the opposition's skips, who seemed to lose the plot and decided to try and fire themselves out of trouble we increased the lead to 23 by the 20th end which was the conclusion of the game.

Congratulations to all the lads and a special thanks to the reserves, G Adams-Uxbridge, G Peisley and R Hackwell both from NPL, no easy task to give up their time, but their support was appreciated by both the players and myself, and it definitely keeps the players on their toes when they see the quality we have "sitting on the bench" no superstars on the day but everyone played very well. 

Apart from the games at Worthing on the 19th and hopefully the 20th August this was Paul Reynolds and Nick Edwards last game for the U25's, they will both be sadly missed by the rest of the lads and especially me as they have both been an integral and very important part of the U25's success for the last 5 years, so it was decided in the best U25 manner that it was only right for them both to buy us all a drink which they did, god bless them both.

Hopefully the lads will be well supported at Worthing on Friday 19th August 10.00am