Well here we are week 14 already only 5 weeks left of the Summer 2023 league season! Unbelievable that we are already into the second week of August!
Before I start last week’s league round up just a few important things to note. Firstly The Red Lion, Drayton closed last week leaving both their Aunt Sally teams, at least temporarily, homeless!
The A side have been able to take immediate steps to play their remaining home fixtures just down the road at The Wheatsheaf starting with tonight’s game against The Hart , Harwell. Scheduled games against both The Bystander and The Vine will also take place at the Wheatsheaf. Fortunately the Wheatsheaf team have no scheduled home games so the arrangement works perfectly.
The Red Lion B side have 2 remaining home matches and hopefully these can be re-arranged at a convenient and available alternative venue or maybe played as away matches. We will liaise with their secretary to see how we can help them to complete their scheduled home fixtures on the 16th and 30th August.
Thanks again to all who entered and supported the Competitions last Sunday and the earlier Competitions held in June. Both days were successful and we are now down to the finalists in all of the Competitions with the exception of the 8’s where I think, the semi final between The Bell Grove and Abingdon Con Club is still outstanding. The winners of that tie will meet Abingdon Utd/Con Club in the final on Wednesday 13th September at Abingdon United.
We know that holding Competitions on Sunday is not universally popular, but the Committee made those who attended the AGM aware of our plans and the decision was voted upon at the AGM back in the Spring. What was good to see is that our President John Simmons together with one of his former team mates John Gapper took time out to come along and watch for much of the afternoon and share some banter with many of those playing. Thanks to everyone for their support and participation on the day.
Before next year’s AGM we will once again look at the future of all of our Competitions, the options and how best to organise them so we try to ensure maximum participation and more importantly, to find out how we attract as many entries from all sections rather than just from the Premier and A section. We want all the Competitions to be more inclusive, but we also need them to be manageable to administer! We will ask all clubs and teams for their views and put the responses to the AGM early in 2024.
Well back to last weeks highlights and lowlights!
Firstly, congratulations to the Plum Pudding who (without the assistance of any handicap) hit 30 dolls in the 3rd leg against Steventon Sports A, who themselves recorded 30 dolls in the second leg of that match. Stevie did have the advantage of a 4 plus handicap in their 30! Plum’s total of 30 was even more remarkable in that it included a blob!
Leg scores were Plum 26,25 and 30, Stevie 27 30 19 so despite Plum having 6 players hitting double figures they still lost 4-2. Individual highlights were Phil Adams including a 6 in his total of 14, Dave Butler scoring 12 , Tosh Wooloff and Barry Townsend 11 apiece and Terry Downes 10.
For Steventon Colin Brind also included a 6 in registering 12 dolls, but he was outscored by Derek (Rod) Fletcher who top scored with 13 dolls for the visitors. I might be mistaken, but I think that game featured the highest number of dolls scored in any game this season so far, so it is worthy of a special mention!
Premier section leaders Abingdon Utd/Con Club like second placed Steventon Sports were also victors 4-2 at home to the Bystander A and Dave Dix was another “sixer” he hit 14 dolls and with Darren Holmes hitting 13 and Scott Humphries 10 to maintain their position as likely title favourites. For Bystander Duncan Taylor hit a season’s best with 12 dolls and Mickey Phillips also hit a season’s best score with 11 dolls.
Steve Enock also hit his best of the season and shared the top dolls score of the night with 14 dolls, well supported by Alan Bell with 10 dolls in Croft Nomads 6-0 home win against Red Lion A who not only are now homeless, but after 3 successive 6-0 victories earlier in the season that enabled them to lead section A have now fallen to 5 successive defeats and to third place in the table.
Elsewhere double digit scores were recorded by Roger Lee of The Hart Harwell, Stewart Towlerton and Darren Sargison of the Fleur de Leys and Abingdon United’s C Captain and music maestro Matt Ashmall in Section B.
In section B College Oak A have gone 7 games unbeaten and now lead the section hotly pursued by the Fleur de Leys. Another side on a good run is Bystander B in Section D who have recorded 4 successive wins.
It still is all very open in terms of who are going to be top dogs and runners up in each of the sections with very little , in terms of points separating several teams at the moment and with 5 games to play in the Premier/A section and 3 to play in the other sections there will, I am sure, be more changes at the top and bottom before the end of the season.
Well that’s about it for another week other than to say it looks like the deluge of a couple of weeks ago seems to be behind us and we can look forward to a warm and dry evening tonight.
Mentioning the rain on July 26th I notice that there are a few results are outstanding from that week, together with a couple from last week so I will be chasing those in the next few days so that we can keep all of our individual and team tables up to date.
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