Skittles

10^th March.  I have decided to re-introduce a former tradition in our Rotary Club. We used to have an annual Skittles evening which everybody enjoyed, but for some reason this lapsed a few years ago. So I thought it was time we started up again, and persuaded our Admin Committee (of which I am chairman) to organise a skittles evening. The IPDG checked out the venue we used to go to, The Greyhound pub in Eton Wick, and found the skittles alley was still there, so a date was decided upon, the alley was booked and buffet food ordered.

Skittles

To make things a little more interesting we invited local clubs to join us, and we ended up with David and Geoff from Chertsey club with their wives, and Kevin and Charles from Staines. It’s a bit of a drive to Eton Wick, particularly on a dark evening at rush hour, but everyone seems to have Sat Nav these days, and I didn’t need to create a map for anyone. The pub is actually hidden down a side street, not immediately visible from the main road.

The Greyhound

As it was several years since we were last there, I didn’t really know what to expect. The first thing I noticed, that hadn’t been there before, was a smoking area just outside the entrance to the skittles alley. Accompanying a few smokers sitting there was rather a large Rottweiler dog, which we had to get past in order to reach the relative safety of the bar. Not only that, he was staring at me in a way that seemed aggressive. However, he turned out to be one of the soppiest dogs I have met and only wanted to be patted.

Rottweiler

Once into the Skittles alley, I was pleasantly surprised to find it very well appointed and tidy, in fact smarter than I remembered it. Ken, as usual, had got there first, and the rest of us arrived gradually afterwards. I was pleased to see Karen had managed to come along, even though we hadn’t expected her.

Skittle Alley at The Greyhound

At this point, the IPDG demonstrated her weakness at mental arithmetic, which cost us a few quid. There was no charge for hiring the venue, we just had to pay for the buffet food. As we numbered 19 altogether, the IPDG sent me into the bar to pay for the food. At £12 per head the total cost was £228 which I duly paid. Only later did she say that it was a pity we didn’t have one more person, as the cost was just £10 per head if there were 20 or more.  If I’d known that before, I would have paid for 20 people, which would have cost only £200!

Skittles is an ancient game, probably the forerunner to the ten pin bowling played today. The big difference, of course, is that ten pin bowling is fully automated, so the skittles are re-erected mechanically and scores are worked out in an instant. I never really covered myself in glory playing 10 pin bowling. In fact someone once commented, after yet another ball had failed to hit a pin, ‘I always knew you would end up in the gutter’.

10  pin bowling

With skittles, the work is all done manually, although at least there is no gutter. To make things more interesting, the skittles are wooden, and not exactly uniform. Sometimes they are difficult to erect as they wobble, or lean to one side. Furthermore the ‘ball’ is also made of wood, and isn’t exactly spherical, so it dances around a bit as it rolls toward the skittles. All this means that great skill, or a lot of luck, is required to regularly achieve good scores.

The bar at The Greyhound

Seventeen of us were actually playing the game tonight, with Ken being ‘ball-boy’ and the IPDG doing scoring (well, no-one else offered). All players had a practice round and then 3 scoring rounds. Everyone gets to bowl 3 balls when it’s their turn. Therefore the skittles would have to be reset 68 times during the evening, and more often than that if somebody knocks them all down after 1 or 2 balls, as I did regularly of course. When organising the event I did ask if anybody could bring along a teenager to do all the picking up and re-setting of the skittles, but my request fell on deaf ears. Instead the task of setting them up after each turn was shared between Chris, Ron, Brian, Tony, Doreen and myself, as we were the only ones able to bend over, reach the floor, and get up again.

Mid-way through the evening we stopped to enjoy the buffet, which was excellent, and good value, even at £12 per head. When we came here in the past, the food was always a highlight, and I had been concerned whether tonight’s offering would live up to those memories, but it did.

Welcome refreshments

As far as the competition went, we divided ourselves into two teams. I tried to keep it competitive by setting husbands and wives against each other on opposite teams. This seemed to work well, as my team ran out the narrow winners, despite Karen scoring two strikes with two balls for our opponents in her last round. I didn’t consider it necessary to check the scoring, which I’m sure was accurate.

Now pick them up

Looking back on the evening, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and it was good to socialise with members of two other local clubs. I think I will try and make this an annual event once again, but to try and enlist a couple of youngsters to undertake the picking up and setting down of the skittles.

End of a successful evening (for my team)