PENARTH Bowling Club endured mixed results last week in a period when "Local Derbies" featured prominently.

Wins in the Munro Cup and PG2 were offset by reversals in the Alliance and PG1. The Ladies had an unbeaten seven days despite a nail-biter in Tuesday’s double-rink match.

Barry Romilly have been something of a bogey side for Penarth this year and Tuesday’ Alliance match saw the visitors once again prevailing over the Penarth team. The winning efforts of Ron Magg’s rink, which featured Colin Hicks, John Whitfield and Paul Church and a battling draw for Dave Plank were sadly not enough to avert defeat on this occasion.

Penarth’s Munro Cup campaign has been largely successful to date and Wednesday’s visit to their closest friends and neighbours, Belle Vue saw this winning vein continue.

Though the Belle Vue green proved somewhat heavy the Rectory Road men settled down quickly and won by 66 shots to 52.

Penarth’s success owed much to the efforts of Clive Fry, Bob Lewis, Phil Davies and Ron Birkby who lost a mere four ends in winning 22-8. Not far behind was the ever dependable Bob Hill, who, in company with Haydn Trow, Guy Thomas and Berwyn Lansley recorded a fine 21-10 victory. With Dave Dalby’s four also winning success was assured and a valuable 12 points gained.

Saturday’s Double-Header saw home and away matches in the Private Greens against their old friends and rivals of Penarth Windsor, with the away side triumphing in both cases.

At Rectory Road a strong Windsor side were given a stern test on three of the rinks, where Penarth won on two and came close in the third, though the margin of victory for the Windsor’s fourth rink, skipped by the experienced Ken McCloed, put the final issue beyond doubt.

Clive Fry provided the top rink for Penarth, once again accompanied by Messrs Lewis, Davies and Birkby, and Dave Dalby’s four also dug in well to win 21-17. Nick Chandler finally lost out narrowly after fading a little in the latter stages.

Meanwhile, it was all smiles for Mike England’s men down at the Windsor where the PG2 game brought a comprehensive win for Penarth.

Bob Willmott, aided by captain Mike, John Bowen and Dave Holdaway had a dream win by 27-6 and not far behind them Bob Hill, Ralph Mould, John Whitfield and Russell Daniel notched up an impressive 32-14 winning margin.

The other two rinks went down narrowly to ensure a fine 98-64 win and secured 10 points to put the PG2 season back on course.

The ladies played just two matches this week and emerged unbeaten in both. The Double Rink match against Rhoose produced a real cliff-hanger, with the teams tied 27 all at the end.

Val Letton’s rink seemed to be coasting at one point, but, things can change quickly and the opposition fought back to win by one shot in the end.

Crucially, it was the fact that Sue Croll’s rink, where Sue, linked up with Chris Davies, Lynda Williams and Diana Willcocks, picked up a two on the very last end that secured the tie.

The week’s Evening League match against Penylan produced an emphatic victory with Joyce Allen, Wendy Grant, Lorraine Palmer and Chris Davies winning 23-16 and Belinda Price, Kath Jenkins, Mary Bowen and Jill Gaskell weighing in with a 19-12 win, to seal victory by 42-28.

By the way, Dave Dalby has recently devised an extremely effective way of clearing the bar at closing time. He simply announces “Can anyone mark for me tomorrow?” and the place is empty in 30 seconds.