We haven’t played a Jeppe Quondam team in the last twenty years so it was quite nice to visit a different venue for a change, but, having said that we all left at the end of the evening saying that now we know why we are members of Chamber Exiles. There was little to zero spirit in the club, the courts are shabby, the ambiance poor and the hospitality as bad! We arrived to be told that they would sponsor us 1 drink and we were welcome to stay for their pub supper but would have to pay for our meal. ONE DRINK!! Eish! Anyway we accepted the deal and told them that we would reciprocate on the return match and sponsor them each ONE drink at Chamber. Our supporters club – Des [buggered shoulder] and John [bronchitis] were on hand to cheer us on. By the way, they paid for their own drinks.
Anyway things didn’t get any better:
No 1 – Brian. Frustrating himself terribly, made far too many mistakes and lost 1/3. He took the second game and we all thought he would take control of the match then but the mistakes crept in and he lost the next two games. He is off on a well earned two week sojourn down to the KZN south coast where, hopefully he’ll do a little jogging each day to keep that fantastic physique of his in shape!
No 2 – Paddy. Our saving grace last week by being the only one to win, didn’t have much of a game losing badly against a useful youngster – 0/3.
No 3 – Johan. Took a game to warm up, then won the 2nd and got quite excited only to be beaten in the 3rd but did have a good game in the 4th although he went down 14/16. Nice match but lost 1/3.
No 4 – Bob. Played a new member who has only been in SA for a few months [ex Netherlands] and refused to play with a double yellow dot ball. Said he had never played with it before and had only ever used a green dot. Bob, a little surprised but not wanting to make a scene said that he similarly, had never played with a green dot but whatever... This was a mistake as the balls are quite different and although he took the first game 16/14 struggled to get used to the ball. Lost the second game 12/15 but by then getting used to the green dot, took the 3rd and 4th games.
Overall result: Lost 5 - 13
