May 9th Northampton retired Police B.A.

BEDFORDSHIRE VPs MATCH REPORT MAY 9TH 2024
May 9th 2024 saw the Bedfordshire VPs play their first outdoor fixture against Northampton
Retired Police B.A. with the venue being Wellingborough B.C. (Northampton). Now this year marks
our 60th anniversary and as a memento a suitably engraved pen was given to every player on
both sides.
This is our first encounter against the police, one we have been waiting for with great trepidation,
they managed to get 18 players despite late notifications of players becoming unavailable After
much deliberation it was agreed that we would loan them a player with the format being we had 5
rinks and they had 4 rinks and a triple. The player we loaned them was John Blyth to whom we
owe him our sincere thanks and gratitude by offering to play for the police, this unselfish attitude
is a credit to John because this is not the first time he has offered to played for our opponents. At
the end of the day we all want to play bowls
The weather forecast promised a hot and sunny afternoon with no rain which was most welcome
considering the rain that we had experienced lately.
Before the game had got started it was noticed that our score cards had our players listed in the
wrong playing order. This caused somewhat confusion but once the mistake had been noticed the
game got underway. You can’t get the staff these days.
The game itself was very tight all through and when the final scores were added up we thought
we had won. Our joy was short lived because it was then pointed out that one of our scorecards
had been filled in incorrectly, so the result went in the favour of the police with the score being
79 - 81. Unfortunately the Chairmans rink lost quite heavily which did not help the situation.
What we did not enforce at the time was that the triple playing against the rink should have 25%
deducted from their score so the final score would have been a victory for the VPs of 79 - 74.
I will leave it up to you in deciding the winner.
The green was in tip top condition with a lovely pace despite some of the long jacks which were
cast did us no favours. So congratulations must go to Wellingborough’s green keepers and their
team for doing an excellent job.
Now we did have a high winning rink being Peter Lill, Rob Leonard, Bob Saunders and admirably
skipped by Mick Curtis with a score of 22-5 so well done and many congratulations.
The meal which was served after the game was a really excellent salad with a summer berries
cheesecake to follow which was appreciated by everyone..
SCORES
Rink. 2.                             Lost. 14-20                                    Rink. 3. Lost. 11-27                                    Rink. 4. Won. 20-9
Iain Andrews                                                                           Pat Irons                                                    Pat George
Geoff Bell                                                                               Anne Baker                                                Carol Curtis
Melanie Andrews                                                                   Peter Irons                                                 Sue Bell
Gervais Cave                                                                        Tom Quirk                                         Fiona Mowe/ Robin Mowe

Rink. 5. Won. 22-5                                                               Rink. 6. Lost. 12-20
Peter Lill                                                                               Taff Roberts
Rob Leonard                                                                        Harold Bryant
Bob Saunders                                                                      Dave Jones
Mick Curtis                                                                           Chris Saunders