Betws-yn-Rhos

THURSDAY

After several dry weeks, today  brought some significant rainfall. It was too wet to do much outside, but it prompted me to nip over to Screwfix in Denbigh to pick up a few bits for repairing the dripping guttering above the garage door. Whilst  there, I also bought some compost and later took another load of things to the charity shop.

By late afternoon, it was time to head over to Betws-yn-Rhos for the final fixture of the Thursday Clwyd Bowls League. Our team, Rhuddlan, are sitting second in the division—just a whisker above Dyserth who are chasing us for promotion. 

Betws-yn-Rhos, are top of the division by a significant margin and are unbeaten this season after 25 games. They have a strong home advantage thanks to their artificial all-weather green. Jokingly, it's referred to as an oversized billiards table, and having played on similar surfaces in the indoor league between 1990–2015, I knew what to expect:  fast and smooth with very little drag, quite unlike grass.

I set off at 4:30 pm for the 14-mile trip, as the shorter evenings call for an earlier start. By the time I arrived, the rain had stopped and the sun had made an appearance. The photo was taken around 6:00 pm.

I was drawn at number ten so it was 7:30 pm before I went on. My game started badly, and I found myself trailing 3–11. I managed to claw my way back and eventually won 21–18. We finished my game under floodlights. Unlike grass, where evening dew would have slowed up the bowls, they just kept on running!  I think it was probably my best performance of the season, and very much a mental game tonight rather than a physical one.

In the end, we didn’t win the match (five wins out of ten but we lost the two points for the aggregate score). Still a decent away score and something no other team has achieved against Betws-yn-Rhos in this year’s Thursday league. 

The result put us eight points clear of Dyserth in the promotion race as we awaited their result to show up  on the online system. It never appeared and  it looks like their match against East Parade (who are sitting at the bottom of the table) was postponed due to a flooded pitch.

We are not optimistic as, on track record, Dyserth should win 10-2 but we wait with bated breath to see which team are promoted ............it's in the hands of the gods!