PENARTH Bowling Club continued their winning streak in last week’s matches with a clean sweep of wins.

Victory in the second of this season’s WBA competition, an opening victory in the Munro Cup and success in the two Alliance matches played, completed a very satisfactory seven days for the men.

Not to be outdone, the Ladies won in both of the matches played; to further their recent good run.

Sunday saw Penarth welcoming their very good friends Phoenix Bowling Club from Cardiff for a Mixed Friendly match.

The match started well with a tight game developing in bright sunshine. Sadly, a rapid deterioration in the weather half-way through saw the heavens open and this brought an abrupt end to the proceedings and disappointment all round.

On Tuesday, the Alliance team had a home game with Penylan, which was also curtailed by adverse meteorological conditions, but not before the Rectory Road men had edged it by the slender margin of five shots.

The top rink on this occasion was the Ron Maggs four, which also included Bowen the Books, Phil Davidge and captain Russell Daniel.

Wednesday night marked the opening of the 2015 Munro Cup campaign when Penarth welcomed Cowbridge to Rectory Road.

Sadly, the weather was once again not really conducive to bowling with a cold gale force wind blowing throughout.

In a keenly fought encounter the Penarth men proved the stronger outfit winning by 81 shots to 63. There were good wins for Dave Dalby and Brian Brennan, but top honours went to the Clive Fry quartet where Clive was well backed up by Bob Lewis, Ron Birkby and captain Phil Davies.

Happily the weather took a turn for the better for the Alliance team’s trip to Pontyclun on Thursday. The pep talk from captain Russell, accompanied by a soundtrack of “Greatest Hits of 1954”, appeared to do the trick, and the Alliance side continued their golden vein of form with a convincing 68-48 win.

Haydn Trow, totally “pumped up” after being inspired by listening to his favourite Doris Day tape at full volume, turned in a very good performance with an excellent win, but top honours went to Derrick Musk’s rink.

Derrick, well supported by Neil Gaskell, Ken Brinkworth and Ron Birkby, notched up the day’s best performance and thanks to a fighting display by the other two rinks, who both came very close, the victory was sealed.

On Saturday, the club welcomed Cadoxton for the second of this season’s WBA matches. The home side found the improved weather conditions very much to its liking and won through by 79-57.

There were three successful rinks with Dave Dalby and Bob Hill battling well to emerge victorious, but the icing on the cake was provided by Clive Fry, who, with solid support from Bob Lewis, Ron Birkby and Phil Davies had a dream day when everything went their way, resulting in a 32 shots to five win which put the issue well beyond doubt.

The Ladies had a busy week starting with a two-rink evening league match against Rumney Gardens on Tuesday.

Despite the rain, the match ended in complete success for Rectory Road with convincing victories on both rinks. Betty Jones pulled off a 20-10 success but it was the foursome of Jill Gaskell, Lynda Williams, Wendy Grant and skip Belinda Price, who just edged top honours by 22-10.

Thursday’s league match against Cowbridge Ladies produced another excellent match and further success for the team, under captain Lorraine Palmer, in the shape of a 62-39 win.

Things were tight on two of the three rinks with Tricia Brinkworth winning by two shots and Joyce Allen losing out by a mere single. However, a sparkling performance from the Elizabeth Coleman rink, saw Elizabeth, with the help of Sue Croll, Mary Bowen, and that virtuoso performer, Patricia Rees, completely dominate throughout to run up an impressive 28-6 success.

This week also saw another milestone at the club in the shape of the 30th Anniversary of the start of the Men’s Friday Night “Famous Grouse” Triples Competition.

This event, the original brainchild of Mike Jeffcott, has been running without a break since that very first evening on May 1, 1985. Sadly many of the original participants are no longer with them but, remarkably, this year, exactly 30 years on, five of the “originals”, in the shape of Brian Brennan, Gerry Allison, Clive Fry, Nick Chandler and Ron Birkby are still playing in this competition which has, undoubtedly, been a hugely popular and a brilliant success over the years.