On Saturday morning, Sidmouth men played their fifth match in the Devon Interclub League against near-neighbours Honiton and what a tremendously exciting match it turned out to be, writes Ken Wheeler.

Remarkably, Sidmouth’s two home rinks followed a very similar pattern for much of the match.

After 11 ends, both scoreboards were showing scores of nine shots all – a very tight match.

Sidmouth then had a poor spell in which, between them, their two rinks picked up just two shots in five ends, meaning that, after 16 ends, we were losing on both rinks, 10-18.

However, a late rally reduced the deficit to seven shots with just one rink left to play.

At this point, news came through that the two Sidmouth rinks playing at Honiton had both won by an aggregate of six shots. This meant that Sidmouth were just one shot behind overall!

So, everything was to be decided on this final end. Ken Wheeler’s rink took the early initiative, and, at one stage, were holding two shots, until the Honiton number three came in and took out Sidmouth’s second wood.

Both skips then had the opportunity to win the match, but neither were close enough to effect a change in the score. Sidmouth held on to secure a 20-20 draw and the match overall ended 68-68.

The fine wins at Honiton were achieved by Ray Tallent, Phil Meadows (making his debut in this competition), Bill Sheerman and skip Chris Nappin (18-14) and Jim Brown, Norman Brimson, Peter Mison, and John Mason ( 17-15).

With two points for each winning rink, one point for a drawn rink, and a share of the six points normally awarded to the overall winners, Sidmouth banked eight points and Honiton banked six,

This was a great result against a team that was currently lying in second position and moves Sidmouth further up the table to fifth.