Victory at last in the U league
After a hitherto lacklustre season, our final U league match of the season, postponed from 18th July, was played on 29th September. Tim Luke, John Greenwood, Barney Lewis and Jack Ingle hosted Gabrielle Higgins, Julian Hofer, Hugh Jones and Tom Hankinson who made the long journey from Hampstead Heath.
Tim (4) felt he had a daunting task against Gabrielle (-2) in his first game, especially when she took her first break to penult, so he went for gold and used all his bisques to get a straight double and peg out on his opponent. Her response was to take her remaining ball from hoop 1 to rover, which she then blobbed. The game then went to time with one ball each, both on rover as the golden hoop. In the end Tim was able to wire her and still leave a shot at rover to get over the line.
Barney (10) had similar luck with Julian (14), who managed to use 4 bisques on one hoop, leaving Barney with an easy 4 ball break at the cost of 2 bisques. When time was called he made 5 hoops and split the balls up leaving him one hoop ahead. Julian had one turn left and amazingly hit in, rolled up within about 6 feet of a ball not far from his hoop. Somehow he then missed the roquet and Barney won +1T.
John(2.5) had his first game was against Hugh (9), who managed to squander enough of his 6.5 bisques to allow John to win +16.
His second game was against Gabrielle and he had 4 ½ bisques to play with. He used the first to make hoop 2 a second time (!) and I let the balls lie. Gabrielle went to 4 back with black and John used his second bisque to start a break for red from hoop 1. He was unable to hit the escape ball after hoop 3 so decided to take bisque 3 to position black for the 4 back peel and continue the break. A failed, angled 1 back hoop saw him use his ½ bisque to position to rush peel black through penult and the last bisque to do so, restart the break and complete the TPO. After a few wirings he laid up by his next hoop between 1 back and corner 2 with Gabrielle on the east boundary. She hit in, rushed to hoop 4, after which she two-balled through hoop 6, picked up the ball at 1 back and three-balled to a peg out to win + 6 OTP.
Jack (16) meanwhile beat Tom (14) +10T and in Tim’s second game against Hugh he was handed a golden opportunity when Tom opponent inexplicably missed a 1 yarder after time and so got from 4 to peg to win by +1T.
The doubles was between Barney and Jack against Julian and Tom, the home team winning by a comfortable +6.
So an excellent result for Tunbridge Wells 6-1. Many thank for Hampstead Heath for making the journey and bringing lunch and wine.