Coronation Match Report and Picures

Bank Hols Mon 08/05/23: Coronation match.

Firstly the important bits…all the thankyou’s!  It makes no odds who organises these things, or how much effort is put into sorting them out, they only work if the members support them, which they did today, so huge thanks to the 48 players and 7 guests who turned up.  Thanks to Dot Elliott for her efforts with the Easter / Coronation raffle, which raised nearly £500 for the Club.  Thanks to Gemma and Maxine in the restaurant for the lovely post – match meal.  This was their last meal, before they break for the summer, so thanks for all the grub and drinks, throughout the winter season.  As usual, I enjoyed it all!  To Sue Smith and Marc Carr, (Pam Fincher as well), for their efforts on the bar and the coronation fruit punch and also to Sue, along with Christine Heward, for taking the pictures on the day, (see below).  Thanks to Glynis Whatman, Pat Wells and the kitchen girls, for their additional raffle prizes.  To Brenda Williams who made the cake for the big day and then she said she was not pleased with her bake, so she did not charge! And to Deidre Williams, who was in, then out, then back in again, more times than the average Hokey – Cokey dancer and whose flexibility is much appreciated…in a bowls sense I mean and not, what the rest of you may be thinking!

With casual and patriotic dress, very much the order of the day, people arrived in red, white and blue, with one man, standing well out.  As usual, that man, Bob Blood, did not disappoint, covered from head to toe, in a full on, Union Jack onesie suit and said that he was also wearing a patriotic thong!  We took him at his word for the latter and passed on our sympathy, to his good lady wife, Carol.  Elsewhere there were plenty of other very English outfits and Union Jacks on show.  We started with a couple of spiders, with our lady guests having first go, with most jacks travelling at a rate of knots across the green, before a bit of order, (not much mind!), was restored, by the so called proper bowlers having a go, resulting in our winners being Val Cook and Dot Gee, with Suzanne Lucas and Tom Heward, the respective runners up.  The day was then about changing teams every 6 ends and playing some different sorts of bowling, alongside the norm and as such, we played boccia bowls, wrong hand bowls, oppo woods bowls, blindfolded bowls, 2 jacks bowls and target mat bowls.  Now that is enough to confuse anybody and so it proved, as soon as the welcome to all, introduction speech was given!  Never have so many people looked at each other, as if to say, “what the hell?”, or rather something much stronger, which meant that there was no swearing allegiance to the King, just plenty of swearing at and towards, the organizer!!!  But the winners of each set of 6 ends, were all pacified by a prize chocolate bar, come the end!

Having said all that, there was plenty of noise and laughter out on the green all day, perhaps none more so than during the “blind” bowling and wrong handed bowls tests.  Bowling towards the scoreboard end, a blindfolded Peter Edwards, placed on the mat and “set” in the right direction by his “helper”, somehow managed to turn 180 degrees and promptly bowled his wood, all of 2 feet, into the bar end, ditch.  As laughter rang out, Peter stood there confident in his mind that he had bowled a superb shot and waited for the praise from his skip, telling him just how close he had got.  Don’t worry Peter, we will be in touch!  Ten pin bowling anybody?!  Top prize of the day must surely go to the one individual, (and a Kent League player at that), who in all seriousness, was trying to do the measuring for shot, blindfolded!  I give up!  And the total number of wrong biases bowled all day, by nearly everybody, reached over three figures, yet nobody paid their fines?  Terrible!  So no wonder the annual subs will be going up!  With the King, (our very own Margaret King), already in the house, we were looking to crown new royalty today and come the end of the afternoon, we had only 2 people, out of 48, who had won all of their matches.  So it went to countback, on shots scored and our winner and new PARIBC Queen, just for the day mind, was Heather Allan, so well done to her, with Peter Edwards, the runner up and *King / Queen, (*delete as appropriate!), in waiting.  Luckily for Heather, her good man, (and now having to bow even more to her), Fred Linger, had sorted out, all but one, of the “Not My Queen” protesters who had managed to get into the building to demonstrate!  Halfway through we’d had, the tea / coffee / Brenda’s cake break, along, with the fruit and cereal raffle, where winning numbers were determined by our lady guests.  We then rounded the day off with a fine ploughman’s and trifle, followed by the prize presentations and the main raffle, at which, Mr Jinx, broke the raffle machine yet again, before the delicate touch, (unlike when he is bowling!), of the Club’s head of IT, Mick T Smith, intervened, to fix it.  By the way, just for Mr Sutherland…”It’s a green ticket Dave”!  The biggest cheer of the day then came at the end, when today’s organizer of the mass chaos and confusion, that had taken place, announced, that for William’s coronation, he wouldn’t be available to run a so called fun day!  Thanks once again to all who turned out and supported and for making it yet another, very social and fun day at the Club and for adding, financially, to the Club’s coffers.  “Up the Arthur”! 

Kind regards, an ex – Club Captain and coach.

*********

Winner and “Queen” for the day, Heather Allan in full coronation robes, (look carefully at the socks!), pictured with the runner up, “Prince” Peter Edwards – Mon 08/05/23.
Prizes for the Coronation/Easter Raffle

Page Last Updated on 12th May 2023