THE semi finals of the Conservative Club’s triples skittles competition saw both games on a knife's edge - and with almost identical scores. Carpets R Us beat Reservists by one pin, 130-129, while the later match saw Mowers 1 beat Mowers 2 following an extra hand play off, after the teams had tied on 129 each.

In the final the following Friday, Mowers 1 (Darren Winter, Seb Coe and Mike Hutchings) started with 29, 25 and 23 =77, with Darren Winter starting off with a 14.

Carpets R Us (Lee and Ricky Baker and David Gardiner) started the first three hands with scores of 25, 24 and 32 giving them 81 - a four pin lead, with Lee Baker getting a 15 in the third hand.

Mowers’ second half scores were 23, 30 and 23, giving them a total of 153, the highest yet score of the competition, with Mike Hutchings getting a flopper 17 in the fifth hand, and in the sixth getting the spare chance but was unlucky to see the third ball go through the pack to score just the nine.

Carpets R Us started with a 25, then a 31 in the fifth hand, Lee Baker again doing the damage with a 16. This left them just 17 to win so with Lee and Ricky getting 15 between them at the start of the hand, it was a formality for David to finish wit ha six, the hand score of 21 and win by 5 pins, totalling 158 and fittingly the highest overall score.

Following the success of the competition it will be run again next year, possibly with an 8-a-side tournament as well. Meanwhile if anyone would like to come along to play a skittles challenge match on the non league match nights the club would like to hear from you.