PEAKED IN THE FIRST ROUND

Tuesday 30th September 2025
LONGRIDGE AUTUMN FLOODLIT SINGLES
At Longridge Cons

After reaching the third round here last Autumn and Spring, despite a lack of proper practice and any singles matches for a few weeks, I arrived at Berry Lane carrying a feeling of quiet confidence. This in itself is a yardstick of continued improvement.
Practice went well, I picked the pace of the green up and was looking forward to getting stuck in. It's a state of mind. If I love the green rather than fear it, I can be a pain in the arse for many bowlers on my day. But, as I mused over my night's play with my favourite competition organiser John Hanson before leaving, we agreed that consistency is the next barrier to overcome.

FIRST ROUND QUALIFIER
v TREVOR BIBBY (Preston) W 21-10

Wondering who I'm up against after returning from the loo, I reach for my bag and hear from Trevor, "It's me and you John". "Oh right", says I cool and collected. But I was actually thinking, "Oooh, spicy!"
No love lost from me when he departed from the Eagle & Child's books last year, Trevor has popped up a few times in my bowling diaries for his sometimes churlish demeanour on the green which I have found myself previously taking offence to. But now he's not around anymore, I'm over it and when going out of his way to slip me a compliment about my President's Day organisational efforts a month or so ago, it revealed the much more gracious side to him that I know exists, but which is kept mostly guarded behind the game face of archetypical man's man.
Amongst the first four matches on, promising practice blended in to matchplay very smoothly. My lead bowls were solid, Trevor was having to put really good ones up to get anything and I started to make a gap on the scorecard.
There were probably three bowls in particular amongst a strong performance that I remember being key to sustaining the pressure. One was after stupidly conceding the block by sending it off, yet still leading out Trevor's replacement mark with a toucher. On a very similar mark I also tapped Trevor's toucher out for one of my own. Then later in the game, one from Trevor's own school of striking, picking the jack out to kill the end when my opponent held two close ones and might have been thinking about a comeback.
Trevor likes to stretch the perimeters of the rulebook. Walking all over the land a few times and sending his lead bowl with the jack still well and truly travelling, but I wasn't for rising to it and particularly when the game seemed to be going my way and so a wry smile sufficed. Besides, not waiting for the jack to stop didn't work out so well for him on most occasions.
I probably played as well as I have in any game this season and my historic little grievances with this fella aside, I've always respected Trevor's bowling ability and not for one fleeting second thought I'd won this match until I reached twenty-one. After smothering the target with two good ones at all-but, Trevor's strike sent woods everywhere but I was still on and that was it. Another notable scalp taken just before my season draws to it's official close.

SECOND ROUND QUALIFIER
v SIMON PEARSON  (Accrington) L 11-21 (off 3-3)

Unfortunately I peaked in that first round encounter when only a similar standard of play was going to test Simon Pearson. I played Simon in the Longridge Spring competition earlier this year and had the upper hand on that occasion, but I knew lately that he had been playing much better. Reaching finals night at Sabden, losing to the eventual winner Eamonn Hernan to seventeen and having got past home bowler John Coupe prior to our second round engagement here.
From the off I just wasn't sending bowls with the same intensity as that last match and it became expensive because Simon was starting to rack twos up and build a significant lead.
I did rally though, managing to lead out well enough to win five or six ends on the spin, but frustratingly unable to match up my second bowl and so they were all singles. Then my head went down a bit as I conceded another couple of twos that had undone all that hard work and my efforts at a comeback had the life squeezed out of it.
Simon was playing some tricky round peg marks very well indeed and I was under the cosh. A couple of strikes were unlucky not to disrupt things, one that found a gap so tight it was the talk of spectators behind it. But nothing I could muster was good enough on the night against Simon.
At 11-18 I thought maybe there could still be a chance to turn the tide as he sent the jack out to the very edge of the green. But Simon still led out with a toucher, then chuffed to have at least put up a close one to surely save, he bloody well put another up. I cobbled my effort at striking and then next end Simon sent two more glorious round peggers in to the sloping corner and once again couldn't quite muscle in on them when playing through.
Disappointment, mainly that I didn't play well enough to push my opponent further. As my previous opponent Trevor rightly commented as I packed my woods away, I never really got started.
To have played so well in the first round and then be so comparatively lacklustre in the second round is something to be wary of in future instances I suppose. But basically it's down to experience and a lack of consistency that can only come with... more experience... and a more conscious effort to keep working on this element of my game.