Well, that was a good week with lots of good individual and team scoring, but another week without anyone hitting that magical 6! Lots and lots of 5’s and I wonder how many of those were the first five sticks with that last stick eluding the doll!
Top scorer of the week was Dave Dix with 14 dolls ably supported by team mates Bob Duff with 13 and Barry Parker with 12 dolls it meant that Abingdon Utd/Con Club looked to have taken a firm grasp on the Premier title as they beat their nearest rivals Steventon Sports A 6-0 with leg scores of 28-20, 23- 21 and 23-22 so a convincing first leg winning margin followed by 2 legs that perhaps could have gone either way. For Steventon the ever reliable Brindos aka Colin Brind hit 10 dolls
Elsewhere in the Premier/A section 5 players recorded double figures for Plum Pudding as they beat Red Lion 5-1. Leading the scoring for Plum Pudding was Phil Adams with 13 dolls and he was backed up by Paul Longford with 11 dolls and Ken Fisher and Barry Townsend registered 10 apiece. The return of Paul and Barry certainly shows the strength Plum have when everyone is available!
Croft Nomads also were grateful to their leading 3 on the night as they beat Berinsfield 4-2 to maintain their recent improvement by making it 5 wins on the bounce. Ian Brook with 12 dolls top scored with Steve Enock hitting 11 alongside the League Chairman Paul Stone who hit 11, his second successive double digit score. Berinsfield’s cause was helped by Mick Greenaway’s 11 and a dismal performance from yours truly who only managed 1 doll for Nomads and I think that was with my 18th stick! In the A section for The Vine, who have not had the best of seasons so far, both Danny Hamilton and Matt Dingle hit 10 dolls to help them to a 4-2 victory over visitors Stanford in the Vale FC
Lots of other really good individual performances with Phil Soden and Matty Belcher both hitting 11 dolls apiece for B section leaders College Oak A. Stewart Towlerton also hit 11 dolls for second placed Fleur de Leys and Dave Collett hit 10 for The Plough Long Wittenham in the same section and in the C section Steve Weeks also hit 10 dolls for The Bell, Grove.
The league tables are still in several sections very open. As I said earlier Abingdon United/Con Club are clear favourites, but in the A section only 1 point separates leaders Bystander A and second placed Stanford in the Vale FC.
In D section Croft B and Bystander share the lead with College Oak B very close in 3rd place, all to play for there.
In the E section it’s going to be a close run thing as well with Harwellian B just 3 points ahead of the Prince of Wales Shippon.
The contest for individual top doll scorers in each section is a pretty close thing. In the Premier Phil Adams leads from Dave Dix by just 3 dolls, in the A section Dean Bowler of the Red Lion is 10 dolls ahead of Danny Hamilton. The B section is at the moment a tie with both Dave Sapey (Abingdon RBL) and Phil Soden on 113 dolls . It’s abattle of the Grapes boys in the C section with mick Christopher leading Lee Brown by just 2 dolls and even close in the D section with College Oak’s Jason Major heading team mate Rick Selby by just 1 doll and they are closely pursued by Sam Higgs of Bystander B and Croft Bar B’s Andy Barrett. In the E section Mark Newman of the POW, Shippon is comfortably clear, but the EF section will be another tightly contested battle between Liam Brooks and Martin Trower throwing for Abingdon Arms B and Steventon Sports B respectively.
Just a couple of reminders, firstly Finals Night on the 13th of September will see the 8’s, 5’s, 4’s 3’s, Captains and Secretaries finals being competed for at Abingdon United FC. A full programme will be on the site in the next few days . The last of the finalists will be known on Wednesday when the second semi final of the 8’s between The Bell Grove and Abingdon Con Club meet. They are both without a league fixture this week so the timing is perfect. The winners will meet Abingdon Utd/Con Club on Finals Night with a favourable handicap of 6 dolls.
Secondly the Founders Trophy, an open competition for all registered players aged 50 or over will take place this year on September 20th at Abingdon Conservative Club. More details of start time etc nearer the date.
That’s about it for this week please excuse any of my usual errors or omissions and good luck to everyone this week!
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