Mind the gap

First ever County match. Two bowls singles. Playing away at Warboys White Hart Bowls Club, the top club in the County. Nick Brett, world number 1, plays here.

Also my first visit to the club. Bit unimpressed. At the back of the White Hart pub, squeezing down between the pub garden and village pond, the green looks good but the facilities are a bit underwhelming. Several sheds, one of which forms the changing room, and a clubhouse that's certainly seen better days. Is this really what the world's number 1 puts up with?

My opponent is captain of their Men's B Team. They play a division above our B Team, so I've a battle on my hands. Wish it was warmer.

Start off promisingly. Delivering my last bowl, he's got one up against the jack. I knock that out, one up to me. Soon I'm 4-0 up. Soon it's 4-4. We battle away keeping level for the first half of the match.

Then start to struggle. He's got his eye in, getting both bowls near the jack. I'm still bowling one short. Sometimes the first is short, leaving me struggling to save the end with my second. Other times I'm lying shot with my first and deliver the second short to miss a chance of scoring two. Effectively I'm only using one bowl. Fatal! Hardly deliver a single bowl all evening that goes beyond the jack.

Inevitably a gap opens. Lose the match 12-21.

I do come away with one positive. My main problem last year was finding the line on strange greens. Hardly a bowl off line throughout the game this evening. Pity about the length.

Still not won a singles game! ~;o(