First team loss

Bit of fuss about this week's Thursday evening men's league match. The ladies have somehow committed themselves to playing a competition match on the same evening. They've assumed only one of the men's league teams are playing at home, so three rinks will be free. Not so! With both men's teams playing at home, there's no room for them.

The Men's A Team can't move their fixture. Their opponents have three teams in the league and two of them are playing at home. So it's down to the Men's B Team to see if we can switch our fixture with Eynesbury C, playing at their ground this time, them coming to St Ives later in the season.

The initial response we get from the league is unfavourable. The secretary says we can make the change, but it will STILL count as our home game. In other words, we play Eynesbury away twice. Not keen on that. If we get to the end of season and miss promotion by a point or two, will always regret agreeing to the change. So unless a more sensible decision can be made, the ladies were going to miss out.

Fortunately our chairman is also league deputy president. A few words of common sense to the president reverses the secretary's decision. We're playing at Eynesbury and it counts as our away game.

Unfortunately that means I can't attend. At Cambridge Arts Theatre for a matinee performance, I've no chance of getting to Eynesbury for 6.30pm. So send the team off with a request for an away win. No specific score set as a minimum. I know this is going to be a tough match.

And so it proves. We lose 2-5 on points. Our winning rink performs a miracle. After giving away 6 on one end, they don't score for the following six ends. Down 12-19 with just three ends to play, they pull back 10 to win 22-19.

Apparently the green was tricky. One or two players had a difficult evening. We'll just have to beat them 7-0 at our home game. Here are the score cards.