It is week two of term which means that the college bar sports are back. Hooray! For the rest of the academic year, the college bars will be packed out on Monday and Tuesday nights to witness the pool, darts and the legendary dominoes, accompanied with a pint of your choice.
The first week sees the introduction of many a fresher to the teams and though nerves may be running high for some, the captains and veterans will have been doing their best to integrate everybody, and pull off that vital week 1 victory.
The first featured game this year is the Men’s A’s pool game between Pendle and Furness. The Furness team were hoping for a good start to the year after finishing bottom and 14 points behind 8th placed County last year. Whereas Pendle, who finished 4th last year would have been hoping to start the year off with a big win in an attempt to bridge the gap this year that formed between themselves and the top 3.
The match started with a hotly contested frame between two veterans in the college teams and a battle between two Toms. **Stat attack: there were 4 players named Tom in this fixture and they all played against each other!** Tom Sharman for Pendle vs Tom Davison for Furness. Davison took the match as he was able to clear the last few balls when Sharman left himself in a bad position on the black and consequently failed to pot. Advantage Furness.
We're 1-0 up in As pool courtesy of a Schoolman win. Our season has pretty much peaked here
— Furness Bar Sports (@BSFurness) October 17, 2017
In the second and third frames, the colleges exchanged blows, with a Pendle fresher claiming the scalp of an ex-Furness pool captain in their victory. Though this was then reversed in the fourth frame with the Pendle captain losing to Kyle Settrey, a Furness player who is also new to the team.
Pendle won the following three games, leaving the game delicately poised with Pendle needing to win just one of the final two frames to take a victory. In need of a victory, captain of Furness pool, Zak Bishop stepped up and was able to bring the game back level after dispatching Sam Lay, who is one of the league’s organisers (and twice nominated for Bailrigg FM’s Sports Personality of the Term competition!).
The final game was the decider, with Pendle’s Chris Scurr taking on fresher Louis Wood for Furness. Unfortunately for Wood, he was unable to clinch the game for his college in his first taste of the intercollegiate warzone that is bar sports. Scurr’s experience showed and he sealed the victory in front of the home crowd. Final score, Pendle 5-4 Furness.
Pendle captain Sam Cooper spoke of promising performances from the two freshers, Mark Dearden and Tom Nguyen who both took victories in their first match, though added to this with, “A bit of match rustiness shown [by Pendle] but it was good to get the first win.”
Despite their loss, Bishop saw the positives from the Furness performance, “Considering how new our squad was with only two A team players from the previous year, compared to how little their team had changed, we gave it a really good go and on another day we may have nicked the win!” There is still good news for the Furness team however, as they picked up the maximum number of points allowed for a loss through winning 4 of the 9 games, which could come in handy towards the end of the season when deciding the final positions.
In the other Men’s A league pool fixtures, Lonsdale beat Fylde in the final two frames to take a 5-4 win. This was the same case in the Grizedale-Cartmel fixture, only it was the Cartmel side that took the win away from home. Finally, Bowland college took the accolade for biggest win of the night after sealing the victory early on then went back to Bowland feeling quite smug after beating County 8-1 on their own turf.
