There was consternation at the start because as the bell rang, John Mac was standing there with only one other team member, new boy Donny. We knew James would be doing his customary cutting it fine and sure enough he whistled through the door moments later, but where was Colin?  A quick phone call ascertained that a calendar malfunction meant he would be taking no part in activities that night and the team were therefore facing a three stone penalty.

Meanwhile Team D was at full strength – on paper at least.  JW skipping, Dougie at his usual third, Kay playing second and Steve at lead.  However, whether all present would be contributing in the normal way was moot.  Steve had arrived straight from a long and obviously very liquid lunch in town and was clearly feeling particularly bullish about the forthcoming game.  And as it turned out, he channelled his uninhibited mood to the good and under the watchful eye of Kay he threw himself into the sweeping to great effect – on several occasions proclaiming that the sweepers had swung the end for the team.

As to the contest itself, to use the old cliché, it was a game of two halves.  Team MacConnachie had a strong start but sadly faded towards the end.  Although Team Waterlow took the first end by one stone it was clear that they were up against strong opposition.  All three of Team Mac were on the brush and looking dangerous, and they quickly evened things up with a single in the second end.

In the third end, Team Mac built up a couple of stones in the house and a guard up front – all in a neat line. Try as they might, Team W couldn’t get in – two shots to Team Mac.

But that was the last scoring end for Team Mac.  Their accuracy waned and although they didn’t allow Team W any big scores, the subsequent ends were a succession of twos and ones against that led to an 8-3 score-line after seven ends.  With the penalty added, the score looked more one-sided than it really was. 

John W.

Team Deemo surge ahead in the Holyrood League – report to follow on how they did it.

A GAME OF SUBS

With the two Young Yin’s off skiing, Steve and Kay also unavailable and Keith hors de combat, both teams were requiring subs. Team Deemo stepped up to the mark and fielded Gill and Richard for Team Waterlow while David stood in for both Fiona and Keith. This was all a ploy to keep Deemo’s team ahead of team Tides Out by assisting Team Herd to a win. This was spectacularly successful.

Team Waterlow – Blue, Team Herd – Yellow.

First end saw great stones from Gill, lying on the button alongside Deemo’s first stones. The build-up of stones in the middle of the house was spectacular and was a mark of the following games. DD, playing third for Team W, made a speciality of being slightly off the broom but managing to get a wick off an outlying stone to end in the centre, the wick being exact each performance.

Yellow managed to shift the blues and finish with a two as we had the hammer, good start.

Second end was almost identical, with both colours packing the centre, but blue managing to protect their winning stone to finish one.

Third end finished with a further two for blue.

Fourth end started well with great stones from Deemo, but calls for guards from Billy failed miserably, his stones continuing to finish against other stones on the button. Apparently this is called a Chinese Guard. There was a blue stone cutting the black and frustratingly impossible to remove. A call for a guard from me was slightly too heavy and also finished in the group but left things open for yellow’s stone. This missed and ran straight through. My last stone was a draw, but the sweeping bug caught both Billy and Deemo and it finished too far back to negate the blue. Yellow finished with a respectable four.

Next end finished with yellow lying two. A comfortable lead, could it be retained?

Sixth end saw blue lying on the button and protected and attempts to remove it were unsuccessful. With it almost impossible to access the button due to a crowd of yellows, John had to burn his last stone and finish with a one.

Seventh and last end had yellow lying on the button but with two blues sitting hard on it courtesy of DD and his special wicks. Guards were the order of the day and duly removed. There was a clear route in for blue to move something, but a perfect guard from me plugged the gap leaving John with a difficult shot. He went for an all-or-nothing shot, the big blooter and hoped for something good. Unsuccessful!   I couldn’t improve on the situation so didn’t take my last stone.

John very sportingly did not impose the penalty points. (Just for the sake of clarity this was because as the club rules state:  “…best efforts were made by that team to find a substitute but were unable to do so”. JW)

Kind regards

Ken.