Bowls Oxfordshire, Mixed Section v Bristol City & County Association - 5 August 2025
The County Mixed section travelled to Bradley Stoke Bowls Club in Bristol for what we hope will be a regular match in future years to play the Bristol C & C Association, who still wear a shirt and tie for bowling. Our thanks go to the officers and members of The Bradley Stoke club for their food , hospitality and very good green.
Thanks to all the Oxfordshire players for supporting this match and I'm really happy that nobody pulled out before the match, which is becoming a rare thing.
We were greeted by smiling faces and a warm sunny day, perfect conditions for a game of bowls.
Overall, we won 113-78, although three rinks were won and three lost, but the margins from our three winners was enough to make this a very good win (yet again).
On rink 1, our team consisting of Freddie Bagley, Terry Boswell, Linda Boyd and skip Ed Stevens were 15-15 after 17 ends, but lost out by one shot in the last end. On rink 2, Val Thomas, John Stephens, John Benfield and Brian Bloomfield couldn't have got off to a worse start.They were 0-16 down after 8 ends, however they were the better team in the second half of the game, finishing with a score of 10-24.
On rink 3, Ron Smith, Sharon Smith, (no relation!), Vice President Alan Scholan and Richard Morris had a comfortable game and won by 23-8 shots. On Rink 4, this was surpassed by Caroline Bloomfields' rink, assisted by Geoff Smith who had a superb game, Terry Thomas and John Hurren. They started well and were 15-0 up after 7 ends and a good team performance, winning 15 of the 18 ends played and a margin of 26-5 at the finish. They won the pens, sweets and Proscecco, as the highest winning rinks and Caroline had the bragging rights over Brian on the way home.
Rink 5 was a closer affair with our team of Nick Baldwin, Micky C-B, Gary Smith and skip Pauline C- Banks just losing out 15-17 at the finish, although the game was close throughout. Finally on rink 6, Roger Hopkins, Barbara Singh, Cynthia Briant and skip Matt Osling had another very good win, after limiting their opponents scores to mostly one shot on the few ends won. The final outcome was a 24-8 win for the Oxfordshire team.
We knew it would be Caroline's lucky day when she won the spider before the match. In the spirit of a good friendly match, VP Alan Scholan in his summation of the day, declared a draw based on both teams winning three rinks, but the records will show another good win, which has become a habit from the mixed section teams in their first season.