Sidmouth Herald published 30 June 2016
Sidmouth Intermediate team set off somewhat apprehensively for a match in Poole against East Dorset, writes Ian Friedlander.
The weather that week had been very bad and only the day before a match in the B League had to be abandoned so a phone call was made and we were assured that the weather would be fine!
Intermediate teams are made up of handicaps 9 to 18.
The Sidmouth team comprised of John Dixon (16) John Coombes (14), Jon Ball (14) and captain Ian Friedlander (9) and, upon arrival, were quite surprised to find that the weather was actually fine! So after being duly refreshed with coffee from our hosts matches for the morning and afternoon were fixed up.
The morning games are made up of one doubles and two singles games. The singles were evenly shared with John Dixon winning his game and John Coombes losing his. So the morning result depended on the doubles pairing of Ian Friedlander and Jon Ball and although they had to give away three and half Bisques (free turns) they manage to overcome that and win quite comprehensively by 25-9. Of course play had to be stopped twice for short and very wetting cloud bursts and with puddles forming on all the lawns we were all glad that we manage to complete the morning games so Sidmouth went in 2-1 up. Our hosts gave us a very nice and warming lunch.
After lunch there was doubt as to whether any of the afternoon games would be played.. As there is five lawns at East Dorset, the two captains along with the groundsman inspected the lawns and found that three were unplayable, but two although a bit squelchy underfoot we decided to make a start on them.
We got halfway through before the rains came with a vengeance and the whole place was flooded making play impossible, so play was abandoned for the day.
A look at the rules for league matches, there are several options open for fixtures not completed but it was agreed that whatever the score was on the morning games that were played the result would stand which meant a 2-1 win to Sidmouth. So after a nice cup of tea and a piece of cake we happily went back home surprisingly in the dry.