The County Mixed, over 60 team travelled a landscape of very narrow roads, to find the host venue, Oakley Bowls Club. It was a warm and sunny day and we had a strong team raring to go for the 1130 hrs start time. However, with a choice of 110 affiliated teams in Hampshire, compared to our 29 clubs, they clearly had the potential to put out a stronger team than we could: and this was the case.
Oxfordshire went there to win and over the first half, all rinks were close, as each team measured up their opponents. After 12 ends, we had a two shot advantage across the six rinks.
From the 13 th. end onwards, Hampshire found another gear and started to take the lead, hovering over a 5-9 shot advantage for a while. Oxfordshire were starting to look a bit flat in the last third of the game, although two rinks played extremely well. One of these was the team of Caroline Bloomfield, Julia Lambert, Percy Hickman and skip Paul Sharman, who kept pace with their opponents and finished with a 24-21 victory. The other team had two married couples, who have played together for many years and they collectively played excellently to win their rink 18-12. They were Carole & Nigel Galletly and Carol & Ray Gaskins. They occupied the show rink where many of the supporters were gathered and produced quality bowling for all the game.
There were expectations from captain Howard Watts, supported by Cathy Smith, Lynda Boyd & Dave Freeman, but after leading 18-13 after a great 6 shot 14 th end, the Hants team won 10 shots over the next 4 ends to seal their victory.
The other three rinks battled hard, but were beaten by the stronger side, leaving the final end, when the towel was thrown in at 118 -93 to the advantage of Hampshire.
This was only the second match for a genuinely mixed team with 12 bowlers of each gender playing together for the county and the results were very promising for future years . It was an enjoyable game and many of our players will have learnt from the experience. We look forward to trying again next year and hope Howard continues to assist the selection committee to build a strong squad. No shame, No blame !
Good luck to Hampshire, who were finalists in last years inaugural occasion at Leamington Spa.