Sub-title: If you’re young, have a shitload of spare time, and get acquainted with the right people.

This was the Thursday pennant board on October 28, 2021, when I played my maiden pennants bowls game at Manning, all the way down in the dungeons of Division 5 White on a Thursday, where I rightly belonged as a novice graduating from Jack Attack… In fact, if you wanted to see where my misspelled name is on this board, it’s all the way down the bottom, the last player picked.

It went so badly at Belmont that I wound up getting dropped and played Bankers the next week, and it took until December to actually win the rink I was playing on… 25-17 at Como, and we still didn’t win the aggregate.

Now, exactly 2 long years later, after rolling up eight days a week, making lemonade when life gave me lemons and climbing up the Divisions, alongside climbing the social order of WA bowls, I’m now the manager of the second team on Thursday, and thanks to a bloke with a shitload of faith and confidence, I’ve gained a well-earned shot at the big bad world of Saturday Premier League:

I’M GASPING FOR OXYGEN UP HERE.

Anyway, my first game in Premier League and Holy Toledo, what a rink:

Cody Packer, Australian squad member and recently crowned the Men’s Singles champion at the Australian Championships to go with his State Singles title that he won before crossing to Manning for this season.

Blake Butler, a State Singles champion and twice a runner-up, plus a National RSL bowls winner.

Peter Ker, a State Pairs & Fours champion and a player who has won a Saturday Premier League title playing in all four positions (Skip, third, second & lead)…

And then there’s yours truly, the Make-A-Wish kid who won a 1 Blue Pennant and just made the State Fours Quarter Finals, in which he was one bowl away from the Semi Final.

But that’s a story for another time.

The funny part is, after ‘we’ were all done drinking and chatting at Vic Park after the State Fours on Sunday, Helen Morss asked me where I felt I’d be playing on Saturday, and I told her (Quite confidently) I’d be in 1 White, because I wasn’t holding out hope of getting a gig in Premier, as I would argue it’s easier breaking into a bank vault than the Manning Saturday Premier League team, and it’s an Ocean’s 11 style job getting into the Tuesday women’s team…

Well, I guess I told a porkie to both of us.

Funny coincidence as well: My first game in Thursday Premier League was against South Perth.

My first game in Saturday Premier League is against South Perth.