THERE were two victories in Penarth Bowling Club’s matches this week with the home side prevailing over Pentrych and Murch.

On Wednesday, January 21, Penarth played hosts to Pentyrch Bowling Club, in a match of mixed fortunes for the home side.

The visitors put up a very strong display on two of the rinks with Rectory Road skips Dave Clements and Bob Hill having a torrid time of it.

Indeed, with four ends remaining both trailed by seven and six shots respectively.

It was at this point that both staged impressive rallies, spurred on, no doubt, by the realisation that the bottom rink would qualify for the “Ancient Order of the Marigold Gloves” and suffer the ultimate indignity of having to do the washing up.

The result of this was that Bob actually came through at the death to win by a single shot, to just pip Dave who lost by just one.

Fortunately, the other two rinks were well up with the ever reliable Bob Lewis winning by 28-6, whilst the other rink, cunningly packed with talent by the captain, saw Skip Clive Fry well backed up by Clive Williams, Ron Birkby and Tony Thomas, producing the star performance with a 31-9 success.

Sunday’s encounter with local friends and rivals from the Murch Bowling Club in a mixed match proved to be a much more competitive affair with the visitors giving a very good account of themselves.

Indeed, three of the rinks saw the outcome in doubt until the very last end with Murch only being edged out at the death.

In the final analysis, Haydn Trow just won through in the face of some splendid bowling from the Ron Crouch rink, (perhaps more practice is the answer Haydn) whilst Peggy Fitzgerald, tying on the penultimate end, picked up a three to just squeeze through against Bernard Toozer.

The result on the third rink was even more galling for Mailyn Clake’s Murch rink, which, after an excellent display against Bob Lewis, saw a 16-15 score line readjusted to 12-15 as a result of fielding a player short.

However any doubts as to the overall result were emphatically put to bed by the Phil Davidge four, where Phil, well backed up by Tony Thomas, Jackie Regan and Barbara Brown won by a comfortable margin.

Next week’s matches are against Rhiwbina and Phoenix Bowling Club.