FOR FOX SAKE, WINTER LEAGUE JUST DOESN'T APPEAL

Turneth October and the Winter bowling league at Fox Lane began. Doubts about whether it's going to be a good idea this time around stretch back towards the tail end of last Winter. Yet when the time came around again, I nevertheless paid my subscription and turned up for duty giving benefit to all those doubts.
I played poorly in the first match, paired up with our skipper Steve Marginson on the back green. We got whooped and I know damn well it was mainly my fault. I struggled for length and found it a mostly unenjoyable experience which tipped my delicate commitment to playing Winter doubles over the edge.
The following week I told Steve I'd prefer to take a back seat or drop out completely if he wished to replace me. He might have thought it a knee-jerk reaction to having played shite and was probably surprised - also confused by my lack of one outstanding reason alone to knock it on the head. But there are many reasons as I tried to explain and yes, playing shite last week was one of them and on that form I'm simply no good for the team anyway.
That game did reiterate my unfavourable relationship with the greens at Fox Lane though and a lack of love to play on them. As I have touched on before, visually they are luscious grassy spaces well tendered, but from my bowling perspective, a stiff surface to plough my woods through with any sort of confidence in what I am doing. I've persevered here a few years but these greens require a skill I don't possess. Perhaps I could persevere some more, but at the expense of feeling I have better things I can be doing on dark Wednesday nights in Winter, it would seem a pointless exercise just now.
Further niggling contributions to my feelings of Winter bowls woe would be that our squad is a little too big to keep everyone (or me, at least) happy. Seven players who are all keen to play every week to fill just four spaces requires a lot of rotation and so some momentum and a good run in the team unlikely.
I thought we were good enough to stay up in the top division last season and I really wanted us to turn our awful start around. But Steve had seemed content for us to accept the fate of relegation and set sights on resetting for promotion and an appearance at finals day this time around. For those reasons already stated though, I couldn't see that being so clear-cut whatsoever. I felt too many changes each week may have contributed to our downfall last Winter. You look around at successful teams in this league and it's usually five - six at the most - regulars and often the same pairs clicking each week. These guys have one or two signed up on the end of the phone should they be short. That sort of set up seems to get the best out of a team.
Now I'm the spare on the end of the phone, I really hope the remaining six start to put results together and believe Steve and his team have every chance now because more opportunities to play will occur from my absence.
In addition to my now lengthening list of Winter season whines and whinges, too often for me our team don't know if they are selected until it's literally time to go on the green. It can be one of Steve's traits as a captain - maybe deciding who to disappoint lies as heavy as who to select to get a result - whatever the reasoning behind it, the lack of preconceived clarity on team selection induces some of the same helpless feelings I had as a junior footballer when the manager would name his team literally just before we got our kit on. It's that cliffhanging pre-match tension of hope, sometimes disintegrated by the disappointment of being made substitute or sometimes rewarded with overwhelming relief at being picked... but this isn't the Central Lancs Junior League Under 13's... I'm fifty-frigging-two next month. I just like to know one way or another in advance and I think that's fair enough.
This might seem a bit critical which isn't the intention here, it is what it is and of course all this is easy for me to say because I'm not a team captain in any capacity and don't profess to have the ability to be one.
All reasons considered and even more that I don't care to bore myself further by converting in to written words - having made the choice to drop from the team I have since felt comfortable about it and convinced I've done the right thing.
Keen as mustard crown green bowler I may be much of the time, however the realisation here is that bowling really hasn't become my number one extracurricular activity at this time of year and serves as an opportunity to take a much needed break from my commitment to it.