Algarve tour of Edinburgh
ALAN CLARKE of the league reports on a very successful visit.
“We arrived in Edinburgh after a delay of nearly seven hours due to “technical difficulties” with the aircraft (ie we can’t afford the fuel, the driver hasn’t turned up or we’re not sure where the plane is).
Anyway, we made it, a group of 21 players and management, tired, but eagerly looking forward to the busy programme planned for the coming week.
The first match was a friendly game against Sighthill, a five rink warm up for the other matches to come.
I was elected captain for the day and the team duly selected. According to Brian Walker’s flash Satnav, it is only three miles to Sighthill (it actually seemed more like 35 miles).
Anyway, we arrived to a very warm and hospitable welcome from this old, established and high quality Edinburgh club. We had a marvellous afternoon, 17 ends of play, five rinks and we lost narrowly 69 – 57.
Thursday dawned a lovely morning, which deteriorated as the day went on and we set out for our first official match at Gilmerton.
Mike Boon is our captain today, an old and experienced hand, having been President of Nottinghamshire. The two rink friendly match was narrowly lost 36 – 29, however the Algarve Royals performed well in their first outing, drawing 2.5 points to 2.5 points.
Both singles lost close and well fought matches, Alan Clarke by 21 – 15 and Sheila Currall by 21 – 12. Mike and Cath Webb won their pairs narrowly by 18 – 17 and Mike Boon, Chrissie Laskey and Lesley Walker performed very well to win their triples by 19 – 14. The fours of Brian Walker, John Denn, Sheila Rapsey and Pat Gibbs achieved a creditable draw 14 – 14.
The rain started to fall as we arrived at the green on Friday for our match against Carrick Knowe, however the match went ahead with Brian Walker as our captain.
The friendly match was only one rink which we lost 16 – 9. The Royals, however, chalked up a significant victory, winning narrowly 3 – 2. Alan won his singles by 21 – 17 and Sheila beat her opponent by 21 – 18, both tight matches. Cath and Mike continued their good start with an 18 – 11 win in the pairs, while the triples went down 22 – 9 and the fours by 19 – 10.
Sheila Currall Captained the Royals on Saturday in their match against Brunstane where the Royals continued their unbeaten record with a narrow 3 -2 win.
Alan won his singles by
21 – 12 while Sheila squeezed home 21 – 20 after being ahead at 11 – 0 and 13 – 1! The triples of Mike, Lesley and Chrissie had another good win by 15 – 9 but the fours had no luck at all (according to John Denn) and went down 18 – 9.
In the pairs, Mike and Cath suffered their first reverse by 22 -11. Meanwhile the friendly rinks won one game by 17 – 13 and lost the other by 21 – 14.
The Royals achieved another draw against noticeably stronger opposition when they played Leven on Monday. Sheila won convincingly 21 – 9 and Alan followed up with a 21 – 15 victory to give us two early points. Cath and Mike Webb went down 23 – 12 and the fours, though playing well (according to John Denn), lost 18 – 9. The triples had a 17 – 17 draw which enabled us to share the spoils 2.5 to 2.5 points.
This was our first trip abroad under the Bowls Algarve banner and it was a resounding success. The Algarve Royals remained unbeaten, winning two and drawing the other two matches. Despite the variable weather, everyone seemed to enjoy the change of scene and the challenge offered by the various clubs in Edinburgh. The team acquitted itself extremely well and showed that the game in Portugal has developed and improved immensely over the past few years – long may this continue.
Equally important was the opportunity to forge new friendships among the players involved and this trip was undoubtedly a huge success socially, with everyone mixing in well.
Finally, everyone would like to give a huge thank you to Connie Borrell and Richard Hepburn who put the trip together so successfully and smoothly (well, almost).”
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