WITH the bowling summer season approaching, leagues starting and county championships taking place, by May 4 the bowlers of the men's Southern Division and the ladies in the Central Division will be in full swing, with matches occurring virtually every day of the week.

The ladies at Falmouth Bowling Club have already started their league programme with both the Rippon and Date teams A and B's playing each other and as forecast last week the B teams generally cause upsets.

In the Rippon the A's skipped by Josie Ogden, Maureen Edwards at no. 2 and Liz Maunder leading, got away to a good start to lead 3-0 against the very experienced Bs skipped by Jackie Medlyn, Betty Twelves at no. 2 and Christine Williams leading. However, the A team were to remain on four for a number of ends whilst the Bs built up a 15-4 lead. The A team did much better near the end of the game and pulled back to eventually lose 22-13.

A feature of the game was the excellent lead bowling by both leads followed by some steadier bowling from the B's back end.

In the Date matches two rinks form a team and the combination of the scores decides the winners.

Date A's with Carol Pereir at skip, Judy Bobin No 2 and Angela Angel leading, proved far too strong for the B's Linda Amos at skip, Sue Beale no. 2 and Margaret Brown leading, who were not at their best in this game as the A's won comfortably 21-13.

The A's second string of Jean Harris skipping, Vi McDonald at no. 2 and Ros Farley leading, had a very close game and just had the edge over the B's to win 14-12 against Suzanne Morris at skip, Elsie Fuller no. 2 and Christine Chatterton leading. The final result was a 35-25 win for Falmouth A's.

Falmouth men's C team, captained by Bill Adams, took an experimental team to play Mawnan at Mawnan on Thursday evening in a friendly. This was a good test for the Falmouth team, some members playing on grass for the first time. Eventually everyone had a most enjoyable evening and enjoyed the experience and came away quite pleased with their efforts. Falmouth's Bruce Littlewood's rink just eased past Mawnan's Malcolm Dearnley's rink to win by one shot 25-24.

Falmouth's Harry Hodges rink also had a very close game, the scores being level at 5-5, 9-9, 11-11 but eventually they lost a on three on the 19th end and Mawnan's Phil Dunstone's rink won 17-14. Mawnan's Alf Waddingham, still a crafty and good bowler, just managed to steer his team past Falmouth's Bill Adams rink with a three on the last end to win 20-19.

So overall, after a very close game Mawnan won by three shots with the final score 61-58.

Falmouth entertained Probus on Sunday afternoon in a four rink mixed friendly. Some of the Probus bowlers also play indoors at Veryan and so the Falmouth green held no fears for them.

Falmouth's captain for the day, Maureen Edwards, skipped an excellent win over the experienced John Reynolds, Probus captain, with her team of Tom Reid at no. 3, Liz Maunder no. 2 and Paul Ellis leading.

One of the features of the game was a hot shot collected by the Falmouth rink scoring all eight shots on one end, and they went on to win 33-20. Falmouth's Carol Pereir had a great game against Probus' Rod Danyluk's rink. This was a very close game and it wasn't until the last end that Carol's rink of John Oldcroft at no. 3, John Bishop no. 2 and Margaret Brown leading, collected one shot to win 19-18.

Cornwall's indoor president, Brian Greaves skipped his Probus rink against Falmouth's John Bobin, Francis Walther at no. 3, Doug Richards no. 2 and John Maunder leading. The Falmouth rink were in excellent form and after tieing on 6-6 raced away to win seven ends in succession to lead 20-6. They wonwin 27-12.

Falmouth's president Harry Stephens skipped his rink of Linda Amos at no. 3, John Jones no. 2 and June Buckley leading, against Probus' very experienced skip Joe Duff. Probus got away to a good start and at the tea interval led 12-4. Immediately after tea Falmouth scored four ends in succession to lead 15-12, but back came Probus with a 3-2-3 to lead 20-15 and although Falmouth won the last four ends they were all singles so Probus won 20-19. Result Falmouth 98, Probus 70.