Having played bowls for over 20 years I have been involved in several hot-shots, most for my side but one being scored against me. It’s not nice when you drop an eight, but great when it is for your team. All have been in rinks games until, in a F&D triples game against Odiham recently, we scored a maximum 9 shots!

It had been a close game, with just eight shots scored in the first eight ends, but to Oldham’s advantage so we were 3-5 down. Then they scored a three, so at half way we were 3-8 down, it was looking bleak.

In the tenth end the easy route to the jack became blocked by Odiham bowls, so Joan Moorcroft and I had to take the harder wide draw which we managed to do fairly successfully and were holding 3-4 shots when it was the skips to bowl. Eventually, with just one bowl to be played (ours) we were still holding 3-4 shots, maybe more, but I noticed the opposition only had one bowl in the head, but it was hard to get to, with just a small gap between various opposition bowls. I asked our skip (Keith Dunstone) if he could see the bowl in question, through the minefield. He said he could, so I told him to ‘have a go at it’ as it would mean 5-6 shots. He played the perfect controlled weight bowl, finding the tiny gap, and took it out cleanly. Having removed six bowls from the head, it became clear we had all nine shots!

The opposition were gutted, and we won the next five ends before they scored again, winning the match 23-15. Well done team, a nice result!