The first big news of the week was Corfe Legion A winning their first game of the season last week. The 3-1 win, which included the Beer point, was against the Oakdale PHC team at the Corfe Legion, the game was outstanding from week 16, and the surprise was that Corfe played with five. Maybe they should play with five every week. This week, the Corfe A side played host to the Bluebirds A side, a team higher in the table than them. The Corfe side had their full six players this week and won another two points, which included the Beer point.
Bluebirds E brought forward their scheduled Week 18 game and played it last week. They suffered a 4-0 home defeat against the Corfe Lads, which could harm their league title chase for that top two position.
Another 4-0 result was the game on Tuesday, where the Centenary PH ‘B’ team took on the Oakdale PHC side at the Centenary club (now known as the BH 15 Club), with the alcohol now reinstated at the club, the Centenary PH ‘B’ celebrated by winning the first six legs to gain the first three points, the Oakdale side won the first leg in the Beer but could not set the PH ‘B’ team good enough scores to take the Beer point.
The Centenary JB team kept the alcohol alive in their match at the Centenary (BH 15) on Wednesday by winning the Beer point in their draw against the Colehill OBs.
On Wednesday, the match of the week had to be the fixture between the Wallisdown Lads and the Claypipe Lads, both teams trying to get the second spot in the league and also fighting for the Beer Cup trophy. The match went the full distance of 12 legs and ended up a draw, with the home side winning the Beer point, which keeps them level on 10 Beers with the Claypipe and Bluebirds ‘E’ one Beer behind in the table is the Colehill OBs on 9.
Cen-Terry! 24 cancelled their game against the Moordown Reds, so the Corfe Lads stepped in to play their outstanding game from week 16 at the Moordown club. Maybe a decision that they might have regretted losing three one on the night.

Pairs Final is next Monday (March 30th) at the Wallisdown Con., at 8 pm. Draw and order of play can be found on the Pairs website page.

25 YEARS AGO 2001-2002
Winners were R. Park & M. Deacon of Bluebirds ’97

50 YEARS AGO 1975-1976
Winners of the pairs were from Moordown E., back in those years, there were only team names that were kept on record. If you know who they were, I will enter the pair’s name in the past pair record files.

The first two match results that I received in the Handicap quarter-finals showed how close the handicap games were:
The first result was from Moordown Reds, who were home to the Bluebirds A team on Wednesday in this quarter-final fixture. Moordown had a starting advantage of nine against the Bluebirds A team, which was reduced to one after the first throw, but the Reds stayed ahead and were 12 up after the fifth leg. Bluebirds A team reduced that down to five going into the last leg. Moordown Reds needed 34 to win the match, and it was last-man, the new Singles Champion Steve Shear, who needed a five to win the game, which he achieved. The final scores were Moordown Reds 443, Bluebirds A 438. Without the Handicap start for Moordown Reds, the Bluebirds A team would have won by four pins.
Second result I received on Wednesday night was from Centenary JB, who were home to the Colehill OBs. The Centenary team had a 12-pin handicap start over the Colehill OBs. The JB team won the match by 13, but without the handicap start, the Centenary JB team would off won the game by one pin.
The third result of the quarter-finals ties came from the Oakdale PHC team, who played against the League Leaders Cen-Terry! 24 side at the Oakdale Club on Wednesday. The Oakdale PHC team had a 30-pin handicap start against the Cen-Terry! 24 team. First throw saw the Oakdale side increase their lead thanks to a stick-up, but in the second leg, the Cen-Terry! got two stick-ups, which reduced the Oakdale lead to less than the 30-pin start they had. After that leg, it was a fairly even game, but the Oakdale side slowly increased their advantage and came out on top by a winning margin of 49 pins.
The last quarter-final match was at the Claypipe Inn, where the Claypipe Lads entertained the Wallisdown Lads for the evening. Wallisdown threw first and scored 43, and with their handicap start of 9, a score of 52 was chalked on the board. Claypipe responded with a 53 and with their handicap start of 3, that gave them a lead of 4. Claypipe hit the highest hand of the night on their second throw, amassing a total of 67 that included a 16 from Dan Perry and an 18 from young Lewis Gunn. Claypipe had increased the lead to 31 after the third leg. The next three legs saw the Wallisdown draw back the Claypipe lead to nine after six throws. The next three legs all went to the home side, and were 30 pins up going into the last leg. Although the Claypipe hit a low score for them of 43, the Wallisdown Lads could only pull back two pins, which left the Claypipe winners by 28 in this fun but serious evening.

The only game on Tuesday night was at the Centenary club, where the Cen-Terry! 24 side recorded their fourth 4-0 win and was Corfe ‘A’s fourth 4-0 defeat of their season.
Both Wednesday matches finished as a draw. At the Centenary club, the JB side played host to the Wallisdown Lads. Centenary JB team took the first point in two straight legs, the second point was a best-of-three legs, which the Wallisdown Lads won, then took the third point of the evening, again in a best-of-three shoot-out. Last man Dan for Wallisdown needed 13 to take the Beer point to a third leg, which he successfully achieved, last pair for the JB’s needed two eights to take the Beer point, mice killer Mark came in with a 12, that took the pressure off last man Rhys to earn them the Beer point and break their sequence of losses, which I reported on last week’s report. The other game on Wednesday was at the Oakdale club, where the Moordown Reds won the first point in two straight, and they also won the Beer point, which gave them the two points on the evening. Last season, Moordown Reds failed to win a point from that Oakdale fixture.
On Thursday, the Colehill OBs only fielded a team of five for the match against the Bluebirds E, which included one-handed Dave Yarnold. The Bluebirds E team took the first point in two straight legs and thought they were on for more points playing against the weakened five-man Colehill side, but the Bluebirds E team had one of those nights where they could not put a solid set of team scores together, and left the Colehill club with only that first point.
Looking at the league positions before the match, this fixture at the Bluebirds club on Thursday was going to be a close result, Bluebirds ‘A’ were against the Claypipe Lads, the fixture was a close result, the home team came out on top, winning three points which included the Beer point, but it could have gone either way in many of the legs on the night.
Another close match was at the Corfe Legion, where the Corfe Lads were against the Centenary PH ‘B’ side, with only one point in the league table separating them before the start of the match. Over 11-legs, the match ended with a wayward last ball from Corfe that gave the Centenary PH ‘B’ team their third point of the evening and left Corfe Lads with just the one point.

In the 1975/76 season of the Poole and District Skittle League, there were four divisions and all had 18 teams, which was a 34-week league season. If you reached the final of the Aggregate Shield or the Knock-out cup, you would have had to go through seven rounds to get to the final of those trophies.

Winners of the 3rd Division in 1975/76 season were Municipal D, their captain for the season was G. Willey, this was their first year of playing at the Municipal Club, the previous year they played at the Newtown Con Club under the C banner and were runners-up in the fourth division, the club shut its doors to skittles so George took his team to the Municipal Club where they won 25 games out of their 34 league matches and accumulated 96 points and won 25 Beers, that was not enough to take the Beer trophy as there was only one Beer Cup for all four divisions, that went to the winners of the second division Pure Drop Lads, Municipal D won the 3rd division by five points from the Gas Tavern Lads their were captain was A. Nicklen, they won 20 of their 34 league matches and also finished with 25 Beers, they were seven points clear of the third place team Municipal E.