I would like to start this report with a apology to David, Alex and Irene.  I have been misspelling their surnames and will try to do better in the future as with a surname like mine, I know how annoying a mistake can be.

This week saw 2 semi-finals of men’s trips being played on rinks 2 & 5 a bit like watching tennis if you are not careful.

I learnt the trick however and that was to follow the comments – I will give you just 4 of many examples.

1 – “sorry it slipped out of my hand” this gives you time to watch a wood perhaps travelling in the right direction but would have no possible effect on the game.

2 – “ never mind we all get old”  unfortunately this was said as the head was being broken up, so it is left to our imagination as to what occurred.

3 – and this is a must see “if you hit this wood it could be interesting, followed by you have and it is”  4 – and possibly my favourite “0 o o oh, man” said in a strong Newcastle accent which I have learnt means either a near miss or a rubbish wood.

I did however catch some game changing moments in the game between Peter Parsons, Mike Stone and Don Fowkes on the 10th end with the scoreboard showing 4-9 in favour of Dave O’Sullivan, Garth Slater and Alex Morrice, Don was holding a very good 4 (8-9) when Alex with his last wood moved the Jack to give himself 4 which could not be beaten (4-13), a turnaround of 8 a real game changer.

Then on the 16th end Don’s team picked up a 6 to level the scores at 18-18 with two ends to play another real game changer.  This gave us a exciting final 2 ends 1st with Alex’s team picking up 3 on the 17th end and Don 2 on the 18th.  Giving a 20-21 final score in favour of Dave, Gath and Alex.

The other game between Cliff Rawlinson, Tom Spencer and Alex Whyte versus Len Daniels, Dave McGaw and John Rae was a somewhat close game but not a close score with John’s team winning 20 – 9.  This game was dominated by 3 ends where a 6, a 5, and a 4 were scored, 15 in 3 non-consecutive ends is hell of a score to pull back, and so it proved.

Well done everyone thankyou for the entertainment and Congratulations to the winners.