Friday 8th August 2025
LEYLAND & DISTRICT LEAGUE DIV-1: Eagle Blue (193) 9-3 Lonsdale 'A' (187);
v NICK DAWSON W 21-19
Three days of successive bowling matches finished with this brilliant match against a player one might have expected to beat me with some comfort - and an unexpectedly emphatic team win that was absolutely pivotal in staking our claim for another season in Leyland & District League's upper sanctum.
The match had been rearranged six days early due to the funeral of Arthur Parker next week. Maybe Arthur was watching on and giving us the nod. All games were close but we chalked up seven winners and the aggregate against a Lonsdale side that had beaten league leaders Lostock Cons only twenty-four hours earlier. So this was quite a result.
I've seen Nick play some competitions and actually played doubles against him a few years ago when my equally green partner Lee Dalton and I were outclassed at Ashton. Although not yet the finished article, on my day I can wrestle with these guys today and this was certainly one of those days.
I wasn't sure I could play much better than I did here on the Eagle two nights earlier, but I surprised myself. The match started with Nick tapping up against the jack and replying with a perfectly executed round pegger that somehow sat sandwiched between them. It set the tone of the game and certainly settled me down straight away.
It was a high quality game and an absolute pleasure to contribute to. There were a few stray ends of course from both of us at times, but our green was freshly cut and running really quick so the slightest mistakes were accentuated.
I seemed to just have the edge though. I kept my nose in front out of lots of closely contested ends and there was one end that will remind me of this game when sending a lead bowl over the middle of the green less than eighteen inches behind the jack that was very near the edge. Nick beat it by six inches brilliantly, but I then gave my second a bit more and I liked it so trotted after it, chuckling to those I approached at greenside, "Why am I running after it like a dickhead?!" It trickled past Nick's by half a bowl's length to count, so the trot was justified. Nick couldn't get in now and had to strike, doing so brilliantly over a tricky area of land and whilst cracking my nearest off, also took his own out and miraculously left the jack untouched leaving my first one to count.
A little later after a couple of twos I wished I could have taken a photograph of, it's 20-17 but Nick would not lie down and won the next two ends with great woods when he really needed them.
At 20-19 I'm still relaxed though and just enjoying it. Nick sent two reasonable ones over distance on a mark that wasn't easy and was holding game I think. My first just ran through so my second is a big one. I had to reach and yet take a bit out and it certainly looked like a saver, but fortuitously clipped the inside of one of Nick's bowls and his despondent body language told me I'd sneaked it.
A few teammates were purring over the game. Lee Kershaw said it wouldn't have looked out of place for a Waterloo final. I'm not sure about that, but it was nice of Lee to compliment us. Geoff Bibby had my card and gave me a side-hug and pat on the shoulder saying, "what a game". Geoff doesn't dish side-hugs out willy-nilly so I knew I'd put up a good show. Certainly one of my best.
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