SUCCESS AND FAILURE IN ONE NIGHT

Thursday evening was a night of mixed fortunes for Oakley teams. The men travelled to Cove in the National Top Club as huge underdogs and when the Triple of Martin Smith, Trevor Wearn and Graham Tompkins lost a four on the first end and the Four of Ric Newson, Sean Lassman, Spencer Kerley and Ted Brown a five it looked as if it would not be a long game. To their credit, however, Oakley kept plugging away and for much of the match there was just a possibility that we might sneak the match by winning 3 disciplines. Two disciplines were lost early. Malcolm Grime went down to defeat in the Two Wood Singles and the Four's woes continued throughout the evening and they went down to a heavy defeat. However with Ashley Nethercliffe leading in the Singles and with the Pair of Bob Goodyear and Fred Norris and the Triples losing narrowly we found ourselves in with a shout with 3 ends to play. It was not to be. The Pairs sneaked a last end win but the Triples went down to defeat so with the 3 points secured Cove conceded the Singles, where Ashley was in sight of victory, and we lost 2-3.

Meanwhile at Oakley the Ladies were playing Yateley in the Thornbery Trophy - the County inter club championship played by two fours. This was a very different game. After just 5 ends Oakley led 19-4, with Ruth Bown's rink 16-0 up and by 10 ends the lead had extended to 24 shots. Things did not improve for Yateley and eventually they conceded at 19 ends with the score at 56-21

Oakley Scores: Mary Varndell, Sue Dixon, Janie Vickers and Ruth Bown won 33-10, Camila Kingshott, Nicole Rogers, Angie Rowe and Val Ryan won 23-11