5th and final King of the hill of 2024. This year’s theme is Navigation patterns. We’ve had hard patterns and we’ve had easy patterns. This was definitely in the HARD category – Broadway V2 – 37ft. I don’t know why this pattern is called Broadway, usually the clue is in the name… Broadway is a road that runs through Manhattan and has all the theatres on… Maybe Broadway because this pattern is suited to a broad spectrum of bowlers… or maybe because it’s a sarcastic name given to a street that was in fact not broad at all and was in fact NARROW and the shot on this pattern was very “narrow” – I dunno, I don’t care – all I really know is that I bowled like a proper helmet !
27 bowlers for this one, with Connor Wills being a no show – which to be fair isn’t like Connor, I hope he’s all right.
The top 3 scores Scratch were
Tom Langley – 1294 a 216 average
Tom Chuter – 1221 a 204 average
Frank Stephenson – 1197 a 199 average
We had £10 high game pot for each of the high game
Game 1 – Nick Kowalski – 236
Game 2 – Tom Chuter 245
Game 3 – Tom Langley & Bradley Armstrong 257
Game 4 – Tom Langley 225
Game 5 – Tom Collings 213
Game 6 – Tom Langley 246
The top 4 in handicap section were (scores with handicap)
Ava Richardson 1323
Jessie Canham 1278
Katie Teece 1254
Before we got into the finals we had the fun pot games… ‘Basher on the 1 and 2s’ …the pot had been built up all year and was now at £130 ! a bowler Randomly drawn (using google random number generator) – they would have 1 ball to take the 10 pin clean out… which wins you a £10 – but then you can “GAMBLE” and try for the 7 pin clean out to win a total of £130 – several people got drawn out. The 5th person drawn out was Aaron Cheung ! – who had just thrown 95 and 96 games ! he was so bad that he probably couldn’t even find his arse with both his hands. He picks up a 10lb house ball… he takes the 10 pin clean out and nearly takes out the 7 as well with 1 ball… so this is it .. the 7 pin clean for 130 smackers… he steps up and pures it ! taking the 7 pin clean – WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER !!
Because that was over a lot sooner that I planned we had a couple of games of “basher play ya cards wrong” – 3 people pulled out jokers and the challenge was to leave ANY split as long as the head pin falls over… for some reason that basic part of this challenge proved problematic with all 3 bowlers missing the head pin completely.
The only winner was Richard Tack he needed a 6 count – and as he had been leaving 6 counts all day it weren’t a problem for him ! – £10 in his pocket.
Step ladder finals
Into Match 1
Handicap
Katie Teece (though I called her Katie Tagg like 100 times !) vs one of Dunstable Dragons bowlers Jessie Canham. Jessie had a big handicap advantage over Katie, and Katie couldn’t reel her back in… In fact, and this happens a lot Katie had her lowest game in the step ladder and Jessie went through 190-171
Scratch
Little Frank Stephenson vs not so Little Tom Chuter. Tom had a chance to be fair. But even with Little Frank dropping a 7-10 in frame 10 he still came through the match 189-175
Title Matches
Handicap
And all Dunstable Dragon affair – Ava started slowly and Jessie had a then upper hand. It went to the 10th frame… Jessie needed a spare, but her ball weren’t even in the same postcode as the pins and she opened. Which left the door open for Ava, who spared and went on to win 206-189
Scratch
To be fair Frank looked to be scratching around to be honest trying to get something going. Whereas Tom looked to be purring and having no trouble finding the pocket. Tom going on to claim back to back victories with a 205-176 victory
So that’s it for 2025 – and that’s it from me !!! 3 years (2022,23,24) I’ve been running these king of the Hillz… but don’t worry. Never Fear ! Sexy Jackie is here ! Jackie Wyatt has kindly agreed to run them for 2025. Jackie might run them slightly different – probably much better !. I might bowl in a couple myself. But in the words of Derek Trotter – It’s not goodbye – Just bonjour.
I want to thank all the bowlers who have taken part this year
To Alison Taylor
To Coz for the photos
To Andy Penny for ensuring the pattern was all loaded into the machine
To Dom Gall at Talktenpin for publishing the scores and report
Thomas Grose at Riding the Ditch
And of course to our brilliant sponsors.. whose support allows us to have some fun, and offer a decent prize fund.
Sponsors were
SD Carpentry Ltd – https://www.facebook.com/sdcarpentryltd
Travel with the Smiths – https://www.facebook.com/travelwiththesmiths
S&T Autos – http://sandtautos.net/
Sundon Model Shop – https://www.facebook.com/sundonmodelshop
One Stretch Beyond – https://onestretchbeyond.com/
WebtexWebdesign – https://webtexwebdesign.com/
We also streamed the event and you can find the video on my twitch channel https://www.twitch.tv/basherback2back
Results
