MARY ROSE FIRST ROUND
BOWDON v PENDLE, SATURDAY 25th MAY 2002
Bowdon team:
David Walters (1.5)
Philip Tidswell (1.5)
Brian Medley (2.5)
Ken Cooper (1.5, Captain)
Our first round home tie
against local rivals Pendle seemed destined to be threatened with rain
all day but, for once, the weather forecast turned out to be wrong. A fine
sunny day with a strong, chilly wind only turned to rain after the match
was over. Pendle arrived and immediately inspected the hoops, only to inform
us that they were set too tightly and would have to be widened. After altering
the hoops on lawn 1, they bowed to proof that our clearance settings were
correct all along, as set out in the CA handbook.
The morning games were all
over in 2 hours with +26, +24 and +21 winning margins to the good guys.
David set things going with a 4th turn finish (his 4th
turn, that is). Brian was very happy to get back to winning ways again,
and Philip & Ken won their first doubles together. In his first break,
Ken was presented with an angled first hoop.
Knowing that they were wider than normal, he took it on and
went round to 4-back! Philip went right round and Ken finished the game
off. An enjoyable lunch was taken at the unheard of time of 12 o’clock
and even Pendle ate heartily, probably already resigned to their fate so
decided to make the most of it.
The afternoon games started by 1pm and Ken soon made it 4-0, and a winning
match score, closely followed by David doing 2 parts of a triple before
finally making the score 5-0. Philip came up with the goods with a +15
win to make it 6-0, leaving Brian out on the lawn for another hour prolonging
the agony for Pendle, but he did not let the side down and won +11. Out
of interest, the total match score was 182-53.
A whitewash and another great win for the team. Now we meet Wrest Park
(whom we beat in the final last year) in the next round; home advantage
has still to be decided.
Match result:
Bowdon 7-0 Pendle.