OUTCLASSED
12/7/22Preston & District League Div-1: Eagle & Child v Empire Services 'B' (Result to follow)
v BRIAN WILSON L 12-21
This was an insight in to a step up in local league bowls and the second tier of the Preston & District League. Eagle captain Steve Wilson drafted me in to replace a couple of absentees, implying I might be ready for it and that it would be good experience.
It was certainly an experience up against Brian, one of the best players I've come up against in local leagues. Anyone not in the know would have had him down as the home bowler, he took to it instantly and rarely faultered.
What my opponent didn't need was a head start, but my first four deliveries shot through and I was in the pickle from the off. Then a few close ends don't knock my way and we are 2-8. I did manage to avert a mauling though and make some sort of game of it until conceding a cluster of two's after narrowing the deficit to just a couple of points. Twos hurt in this game.
Occasionally though I produced some very good shots and enough to cling to Brian's coattails for a while. Nothing less than a very good bowl would get anywhere near to winning an end and sometimes even that wasn't good enough, so on an evening when once again I wasn't steady throughout the match, I did knock the odd big shot up and twelve points on the board wasn't an entirely awful return.
A controlled strike cannoning off both his counting bowls to make one for myself was the highlight. It was the only shot on, ambitious, but I pulled it off. Rather than sulk too long about the result in this scenario up against a higher quality and vastly more experienced player, I need to remember positive moments like this - what I did and can do rather than what I didn't and can't.
I looked Brian up on t'internet bowls site walking home to find this was his sixth win from eight and fourth win from four away from home. I didn't do so bad.
Unfortunately the match concluded on a couple of sour notes though.
Firstly our scorers disagreed, with Brian and their marker having a good old four letter worded chunner as they felt robbed of a point when he thought he'd won the game. In retrospect, I did concede three two's on the trot I thought and that 12-14 had become 12-20, but our scorer young Jack was adamant my opponent only put one hand up during one of these disputed ends. Despite Brian getting rattled, it didn't affect his next two bowls one bit.
Another very good lead bowl and a second close one for good measure does win it, but then sour note #2: One of their players shouts, and absolutely unprovoked I might add, "Aaagh he's not ready for all this, it's too much for this lad (me) striking like that!".
I looked Brian up on t'internet bowls site walking home to find this was his sixth win from eight and fourth win from four away from home. I didn't do so bad.
Unfortunately the match concluded on a couple of sour notes though.
Firstly our scorers disagreed, with Brian and their marker having a good old four letter worded chunner as they felt robbed of a point when he thought he'd won the game. In retrospect, I did concede three two's on the trot I thought and that 12-14 had become 12-20, but our scorer young Jack was adamant my opponent only put one hand up during one of these disputed ends. Despite Brian getting rattled, it didn't affect his next two bowls one bit.
Another very good lead bowl and a second close one for good measure does win it, but then sour note #2: One of their players shouts, and absolutely unprovoked I might add, "Aaagh he's not ready for all this, it's too much for this lad (me) striking like that!".
So my attempted strike to save the match went badly wrong and was maybe two feet wide. Not my finest moment and the heckler is right to a degree, I was certainly outclassed by my opponent on the night, but what the blazes it had to do with this big mouthpiece Darren Wilkinson? I do not know.
He struts pigeon-chested around the green as if he's 'the big I am'. Delusions of grandeur perhaps?
Presumably Wilkinson is winning too much at this level which is fuelling an ego way too fragile to risk damaging it at a higher level where he'll get under the cosh like I did here against Brian.
I wittered something back which unfortunately satisfied Darren with the rise that he was looking for. Meanwhile, I get my outlet here to take the opportunity of calling out his behaviour as that of a total bell end and not in the spirit of bowls, that's for sure.
After I'd gone, there was more aggro towards our players I am reliably informed. Some good players in this Empire Services team, but their captain or somebody with a rational head in their camp needs to get a grip on one or two individuals turning a game of bowls in to a slanging match induced by overspills of puffed-chestedness, testosterone and lager shandy.
I wittered something back which unfortunately satisfied Darren with the rise that he was looking for. Meanwhile, I get my outlet here to take the opportunity of calling out his behaviour as that of a total bell end and not in the spirit of bowls, that's for sure.
After I'd gone, there was more aggro towards our players I am reliably informed. Some good players in this Empire Services team, but their captain or somebody with a rational head in their camp needs to get a grip on one or two individuals turning a game of bowls in to a slanging match induced by overspills of puffed-chestedness, testosterone and lager shandy.
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