The week saw the New Year’s confidence of Sidmouth’s men bowlers sorely dented, with difficult league and cup matches, writes David Fairclough.

The week’s county Trophy Over-60’s fixture was against Mid Devon club, played by way of two rinks at home and two in Tiverton.

The overall match was lost, but there was the compensation of a win on one of the home rinks, by a shot margin of 20-12.

The winning rink was skipped by Ron Cook, supported by Maurice Watson, Dave Lever and Peter Mison, thereby earning Sidmouth three league points.

A greater disappointment was a heavy defeat in the second round of the Charles Parrott Cup, losing on both the home rink and the one in Plymouth.

It was left to the mixed friendly matches to endeavour to lighten the atmosphere at the Club.

A triples match of three mixed rinks against ISCA (Exeter) Club was played at Sidmouth on Saturday 24. Special thanks must go to Gordon Brown and Terry Rawlings, who came in at the eleventh hour, to substitute for two late ISCA withdrawals.

The match turned out to be one of the closest and most enjoyable of the season, with all three rinks closely fought.

The final result was two rinks drawn, and one lost by a single shot. The aggregate score was a win for ISCA, 43-42, but the match was equally enjoyed by both clubs’ players, without the pressure of league points at stake.

On Sunday, we received three mixed rinks from Honiton.

Unusually, this was a friendly match that failed to lighten the atmosphere in terms of the result. Honiton won on two of the three rinks, and by an aggregate shot score of 62-46. Sidmouth’s winning rink, by a margin of 22-17 was skipped by Bert Hague supported by Maureen Lamb, Janice Quinn and Garry Hargrave.