Teesside Distroy Competition in Competition!

So another bowling tournament happened the other week, and as per usual I brushed aside my mountain of work and spent a day bowling. It was time well spent; it was a good time spent well.

Ok so we arrived at the alley an hour early...

So the organisers were late...

And the alley wouldn't let anyone inside until well past registration was meant to end... (and it was freakin' cold!)

So what if I'd been up since 3am...

There was something in the air, it was one of those times when you just knew something special was going to happen, I didn't know what but something special was on the horizon.

The first special thing was that there were only 11 teams taking part. 11! That's nothing; our chances of scoring some beer and trophies just went up several octaves.

So then the first event... The Doubles! First game, my standard level of rubbish, not the start I'd hoped for however me and my partner managed to beat the opposition, so I wasn't too concerned, and it appeared to show, with my next game being a much more normal (back in the ol' days...) 183. Now I was cooking, the oil was nice, confidence was quite high and we'd beaten the opposition again (hammered would be a suitable metaphor). On to the last game of the doubles and a slight dip in score to 175 not bad, overall a half decent series (total score) as was expected we trounced the opposition again.

With the doubles over I had a break until my next event, my duty was clear to help support my team mates in their Trios event. They did well, no scrap that they did pretty damn well, one of them not only managing to beat his beat his PB (personal best) by some way but also managing to average over it as well. A truly amazing feat. Midway through and the results from the doubles were in... We'd won! It was totally out of left field, neither my self nor my doubles partner were expecting first, yes we expected some silver ware at some point during the day but not in the first event and certainly not first. It's not often I win something, it's even less often that the person who helped in the victory decides to hug me, but he did, a good proper man hug.

So it wasn't even noon and we'd already bagged a trophy with a good chance of getting a second thanks to that excellent personal performance mentioned above, confidence was high, although some of the team weren't playing as well as they would have liked they soon changed their tune after soaking up some of confident waves being emitted by the rest.

So with the trios finished, it was time for the lanes to be re-oiled which can only mean one thing, time for lunch! A quick dash across the parking lot to get to the KFC (it's finger lick' good!) and good-god! We must have looked like a bunch of tight fisted gits only two of us actually having enough money to get a full meal, I barely had enough for a regular portion of pop-corn-chicken, of course it meant that I couldn't afford a drink if I needed one. Another quick dash across the car park and I had to get ready for my next event, then Singles.

Oh dear.... oh dear.... oh dear.... Did I mention oh dear? Not a very good performance, the oil was different and much more challenging, my line from my previous games was gone and I was struggling to find a new and it showed, I couldn't even get my spares, resulting in a 134 in the first, I managed to find some semblance of a strike line in the second, gaining an extra 10-pins and scoring a 144, then in the third it kicked in, increasing my score by 20-pins to 164. Not a great series, a pretty rubbish one in fact, even considering my recent "form". Good news came however from finding out that the guys had won the Trios, two first place trophies in one tournament, a first in Teesside Bowling history as far as I'm aware. Of course this made my rubbish result in the singles all the more annoying, as it meant that we couldn't possible white-wash the event, never mind...

Another break for me, which meant that the rest of the team was up, this time for the Quads and a solid performance all round, no amazing scores this time but they hit their average or above which you can't argue about, you can try but you won't get anywhere. Time for another re-oil, another dash across the car park, no wait, no one has any money, best stay in the bar and drink water... during the re-oil I had to partake in some bowling politics, all rather boring stuff, as politics is really... However once that was dealt with we discovered that we had another trophy, this time as runner-ups in the Quads event, today was turning into a great day for Teesside Bowling and surely something that will be talked about for years to come.

The re-oiling done and it was time for the final event, the Fives, one last hurrah before the trip home and low and behold we'd be bowling against one of my old bowling buddies from back when I was but a wee-lad. Time to shine I thought to my self, unfortunately it was more a faint, dim, flicker, never the less we were able to beat the opposition, who it would eventually turn out would end up out of the top 3 having been in second place before the Fives event. Having totally broken them after the first game we were confident of more silverware. Although my scores weren't as good as I had hoped being 167, 171, 160 given the difficulty of the lanes I was pleased enough with what I got, plus I beat my old bowling pal, which is always good! Even more so when you consider that he is 5 years my senior!

So the Tournament was all but over, and running extremely late, the awards ceremony was meant to start at 7:30pm; it didn't get started till 8:30-9:00pm. Which didn't please the league bowlers, waiting to get on the lanes after us. That's a story for another time though, on with the ceremony!

Of course we already knew we'd won a fair bit of silverware, what with winning the Doubles and Trios, getting second in the Quads. We were pretty sure we'd won the Fives and by consequence the tournament overall. The first award handed out was the Doubles, me and team mate strode out nice and proud, got our trophy and four bottles of beer (nice!) and had our photo taken (in glorious blur-o-vision), next up was the Trios and again the guys went up all nice and proud, picked up their trophy, got another handful of beer and had their blurry photo taken. A bit of a rest as the singles awards were given out, however we couldn't switch off as we had a pretty good feeling that the star of the day had won an individual trophy for his stunning performance earlier and sure enough he had, High Handicap Series, a nice medallion and a bottle of wine for his troubles and another blurry photo. On to the Quads now and the guys still proud to come in second, picked up their trophies and a crate of beer (hell yeah!) and another photo in brilliant blur-o-vision (hell one of our players wasn't even looking into the camera!). Next was the Fives, how did we do? Don't know about the others but I was a little tense but we could rejoice as we'd won the Fives! We all went up, collected our trophies and another crate of beer (Oh boy we were going to get hammered soon!) and of course the seemingly obligatory blurry photo. Having won the Fives we were pretty sure we'd won the overall tournament prize as well, second place was read out (no prize for third place here!) and it was a surprise team, we were on edge the tournament director read out the team name and we'd won! We'd won the whole freakin' tournament! Surely a first for the club! Everyone goes up, picks up their rather impressive trophies and two crates of beer (oh my bladder and liver sure didn't like that!) and one more burry photo and we were done. No doubt in anyone's mind who were the most successful team of the day.

So four crates of beer, a bottle of wine and 20 trophies between us, meaning we all got 17.2 bottles of beer each and a nice collection of trophies. I managed to get decent photo of the team with their winnings before we headed off home. Overall a very long but very rewarding day, well worth putting off uni work for.

So we were late getting the car back by 3 or 4 hours...

So one of the team crashed his car on his way home, snapping a trophy in half and smashing 15 of his 17 bottles...

So I bowled rubbish in the Singles event...

It was one hell of a day!

This is Benji Dude, asking you to talk a walk in my shoes.