Author Archive | waltho1

May 18th 2014 What a gorgeous day: Californian weather. We played Brynmawr at home. We were meant to be at their place but they had a clash of fixtures and they asked for a swap. Which was a bit of a shame because you don’t get Californian weather in Brynmawr that often. To be fair, […]

May 8th 2014 It was Bubba what done it; well, Bubba and a “happy place”. The “happy place” belonged to my 3rd who mentioned it when I had a chance to talk to him about the season ahead. I had sort of planned a speech about how his despondency last season – when he was […]

August 13th On Wednesday we played at home again, my “third” was back and it was a fine evening for bowls. As it turned out we had all our players available for selection (16) and for the first time in years we had to ask some people not to play. This is a developing issue […]

27th July I arrive at the green (we’re away) and I’m in a confident, dare I say, cocky mood following yesterday’s win. Ridiculously, I get a bit uppity because they have started the preliminaries even though there’s 10 minutes to go before kick-off. This is a throwback to the days when I had to take […]

26th July It’s 20 across and I’m one down. In my hand I’m holding the last wood that is going to be bowled in the match. I’m playing in the next round of the two-wood singles. It’s a Friday evening. It is for these moments that I bothered in the first place. Bothered, that is, […]

13th July Wow, it was hot! We lost. You need to know that straight away so that you can judge my comments in their correct context. We snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by dropping a pathetic “5” on the last end. Luckily, I had a valid excuse to leave early and forgo the […]

17th July So, it’s a Wednesday. It’s six o’clock in the evening and it’s boiling. The green is fast, the sun is fierce and I’ve left my floppy hat at home. Bad start. It’s my first game of singles for years. Singles is the format that dominates crown green bowls – the version of the […]

June 29th What a scorcher! And we haven’t got a game because the opposition couldn’t raise a team. The first really beautiful afternoon of the summer and we haven’t got a game. Bugger! I could go on about the parlous state of the game when a club can’t raise a team in the middle of […]

22nd June 2013 Today’s piece is about what can happen when you start a match already in a bad mood. Or, to be more accurate, the perils of starting a match when you’re already in a bad mood; or, the inadvisedness of starting a match etc etc. I may as well tell you now that […]

June 15th It’s back. OMG, what a relief! I love playing well. I love being a skip and playing well. I love it with the identical intensity that I hate being a skip and not playing well. And it is so easy. I’m always staring straight at it but it always takes a few games […]