ROCHESTER BLIND BOWLING GROUP

  It was a bitterly cold day, but the warmest of welcomes from Betteshanger, on Wednesday, March 10th.

  On the back of some extremely good bowling, at our indoor roll-ups, I wondered if we might surprise our opponents. I should have known better. There are some seriously good bowlers in the Betteshanger club. It was not that we were bowling badly – though not up to yesterday’s roll-up standard – but there is something about a match situation that makes a difference. Not that it was anything but very cheery, on the rinks, and our hosts were very generous. Many of our side today had not started bowling the last time we were at Betteshanger, eighteen months ago. There is still a lot to learn, but it was fun, learning out there, today. There was some very useful coaching amid plenty of laughter and enjoyment. Everyone left the rink having had a great time.

  Special mention must go to Hans David and Peter who gave John, Ruth/Pat and Eve a very good run for their money. At the halfway stage RBBG held the lead at 8-7, but a couple of shots to Betteshanger, on most of the remaining ends, gave the scoreboard a lopsided look with a 19-9 defeat.

  Ten shots to Bernard, Ken and Hazel in ends 6, 7 and 8 were the essential margin in their 20-9 win over Hetty, Trudy and Doreen. Trudy’s abiding memory of the match will be the use of the club’s second rink wheelchair, which Hazel offered her. On top of a pairs match yesterday, at our roll-up, today’s 16 ends could have been testing, but the chair made all the difference. Trudy would have liked to pop it into the back of their car!

  (Incidentally, many thanks to Peter, Evelina, Tom and Pat for driving duty, today. Without them we would be in real trouble.)

  Rosemary, Janice and Leonie beat Chris, Ian and Marian 19-3. Fraser, Joyce and Carol beat Terry, Penny and Norman 23-6. These were similar margins - and all about damage limitation, getting one of our woods in amongst their consistently good bowling to limit the scores. Everyone is in that position, at various times; it is the nature of bowling. How nice to be in such good company, on those days!

  And so to a fantastic tea, good quality and lots of it. No one could have left hungry and doggy bags were provided to carry away some of the surplus. Captain Pat said how much her members had enjoyed the day, invited us back next year (fantastic, we’ll agree a date immediately!) and she then returned our green fees, together with the proceeds of the raffle. That really topped off our day. Many, many thanks to our generous hosts.

  Possibly the day’s only cloud was when the (captive) audience were entertained (?) by Fraser, Chris and Brian with a few old songs. It was then the assembled company, in a rousing chorus of Rule Britannia, to end the day’s proceedings. RBBG left our hosts with the washing up and headed home, very happy after another grand day out – thank you, Betteshanger.

  An interesting footnote:

  'Betteshanger, eighteen months ago, was our last match as MBBG. All five of our partially sighted members at that time played. This time around we had five members absent for one reason or another (Bella, Ann, Lynne, Stan and Bill) but we still had eleven group members on the rink who are registered with KAB. It shows how far we have come in that time.'

  Match result:

  Betteshanger  81 - 27 RBBG
  R1 Eve, Ruth/Pat, John 19 - 9 David, Pete b, Hans
  R2 Bernard, Ken, Hazel 20 - 9 Hetty, Trudy, Doreen
  R3 Rosemary, Jan, Leoni 19 - 3 Chris, Ian, Marian
  R4 Fraser, Joyce, Carol 23 - 6 Terry, Penny, Norman