SUCCESS proved elusive for Penarth Bowling Club in last week’s matches with just one win in the five games played.

The good news which lifted the gloom was the fact that as a consequence of last week’s encounters the PG Two side are now assured of promotion.

On Tuesday, the Alliance team found it a hard struggle against a strong Whitchurch team, eventually going down on all four rinks.

Bob Willmott, with Nick Thomas, Ken Brinkworth and Neil Gaskell battled well to only lose 12 - 17 whilst Joe Ellis, Brian Knight, Tony Thomas and skip, Ron Birkby kept the score to a respectable level in a game which remarkably saw 16 singletons scored over the 18 ends.

Things were not much better in Thursday’s three rink Alliance game with St Fagans which ended in a 43 - 52 loss. The bright spot in this one was a 16 - 8 win for Roger Gidman with Bob Willmott, Ken Brinkworth and Claudio Gent.

Thursday brought Penarth’s solitary success of the week with a win at Penarth Windsor in the PG Two. Another good performance from Bob Hill (22 - 15) with the help of John Whitfield, Mike England and Neil Gaskell and a hard fought 16 - 15 success for Nick Thomas with Brian Hocking, Joe Mackie and Russell Daniel gave the side a solid platform, but, without a doubt, the performance of the day came from Dave “Crafty Cockney” Hilldrup with a 20 - 12 victory.

Dave, who claims to be the only person in recorded history to have actually fallen asleep in Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, was very ably backed-up by Laurie Brooke, Paul Church and Trevor Jenkins.

The overall winning margin of 75 - 69, worth 12 points, actually sealed promotion to Division One of the PG Two.

Captain Mike Conway appeared somewhat reluctant to reveal details of Saturday’s PG One game at home to St Joseph’s. A perusal of the details made this unusual reticence all too clear.

The Rectory Road men were second by some distance in this exchange, with Colin and Rob Grant, Dave Clements and Guy Thomas (16 - 19) the only rink to attain some level of respectability.

The visit of the PG Two team to St Joseph’s was also to result in a reversal, if only by a mere 10 shots overall. Top rink for Penarth was again the ever dependable Bob Hill, who with John Whitfield, Mike England and Ron Birkby won by 21 - 19. A very hard won draw for Haydn Trow, Colin Hicks, Alan Stockham and Berwyn Lansley and modest defeats for the other two rinks kept the overall issue reasonably close.