The sunshine and hot conditions enhanced the enjoyment of this fixture and Banbury Chestnuts presented us with an excellent green and wonderful hospitality.
We played 5 rinks and one triple, to match the Leicester teams availability. The triple team of Sharon Smith, Terry Boswell and Maureen Osborne had a 7-2 start after 6 ends, but their opponents changed gear and scored 14 shots on the next 3 ends. This gave them a healthy lead which they retained for the rest of the game, finishing 13-23 to the Leicester team.
On rink two we had confidence in the fact that we had two experienced Chestnut players in tbe team, however the sun drained their energy a little and the team of Caoline Bloomfield, John Stephens, Gary Smith & Richard Morris lost by 10-13 shots. The Presidents rink of Sue Mayo, Alan Scholan, Lynda Boyd and John Hurren won 13 of the 18 ends with a score of 24-7, showing leadership to the other rinks.
On rink 4, Margaret Morris, Julia Lambert, Brian Meikle & Ian Jackman started well with a 5-1 lead after the first three ends, but their opponents had won 7 consecutive ends in the middle to get themselves in front to lead 7-19. However our team fought back, winning the last 4 ends and bringing the final score of a respectable 16-19 loss.
The game changers were on rinks 5 and 6, where both our sides had good wins. On rink 5, the team skipped by Bran Bloomfield, assisted by John Standen, Sue Reid and John Benfield had some big scoring ends and finished 26-7. On Rink 6 our team went even better, thanks to Clive Bristow, Pat & Brian Ray and Mike Morris (Skip).. They won 13 of the 18 ends with some big scoring ends in theri game. They achieved the accolade of best winning rink with a score of 38-8 shots. Well done.
Following a good buffet provided by our hosts, our President was a gentleman as usual and announced that both teams won three ends each and that related to a drawn match. However, in reality the scores were 127 - 77 shots (50 shots difference) between the two teams. Well done Oxfordshire.