Ken Sutcliffe has been around Euroa Bowls Club for the best part of 40 years and even Saturday’s incredible Allan Matheson Shield triumph had him searching through the history books.
Euroa defeated Goulburn Valley Playing Area weekend pennant division one powerhouse and reigning premier Shepparton Golf by three shots in a memorable afternoon down by Seven Creeks.
The slim 15-91 to 3-88 round eight victory ends Golf’s unbeaten start to the campaign and hands Euroa its third consecutive win and brings it within 21 points of the top four.
It is the first time Euroa has gotten the job done over Golf in the Allan Matheson Shield competition for “more than 20 years”, although even Sutcliffe reckons that figure could be double.
“I can’t remember it (last victory over Golf) and I’ve been here for 40 years,” the Euroa skip said.
“(Someone said) they remember us beating them and putting them out of finals about 20 years ago ... I reckon it would be more than 20 years. I can’t even remember ... it’s bloody great, it was our turn and I suppose it will be another 20 years before we’ll knock ’em off again.”
The magnitude of the win is not lost on Sutcliffe.
“It was a ripper. We had a couple of drinks to celebrate, it was good for the club, it’s good for the league too I suppose and it shows that they are beatable,” he said.
“It’s just great for the bowls club. We’re all so happy and to Golf’s credit, they accepted defeat with honour, they went around and shook all our hands and congratulated us.
“If a bottom rung side (can do it), then there’s chances for everyone.”
Euroa had standout performers everywhere you looked on the green.
Tony Kingma and his rink saluted over John Gribble (25-24), while fellow skip Shane Drysdale (21-18) was enormous late in the piece to get a win over Golf’s coach Brad Orr.
Sutcliffe’s rink drew with Kris Ferguson (22-22), despite third Colin Power “bowling superbly” according to the Euroa skip.
Despite coming up against one of the most dominant clubs the region has seen, Sutcliffe said a handful of home players were bullish on their chances prior to the match.
“We had our pre-match talk and a few of us were half-confident that we could give them a scare,” Sutcliffe said.
“We felt we’ve been going all right, weren’t far away and haven’t been missing out by much ... so we thought we were half a chance.
“Four or five of us thought that it might be our turn. It was close the whole day, each rink there was probably only two, three, four shots in it for the whole day.”
Sutcliffe recounted the final ends of the historic contest.
Kingma, Houston and Sutcliffe’s rinks had all finished and made there way to watch the end of Drysdale’s battle against Orr.
Like all fairytale scripts, a hint of good luck was needed.
“Shane was level and he had two ends to go ... he had the best rotten bowl of his life,” Sutcliffe said with a laugh.
“He played a backhand and it was narrow and it crossed the head and dropped right in front of Orry’s line. I said to Shane, ‘that’s the best worst bowl you’ve ever bowled in your life’.”
Sutcliffe, who also acts as greenkeeper, pointed to the wet weather last week for “slowing down” the greens ― even if he did try his hardest to make them run sub 15 seconds.
“We had an inch of rain last week and that really slowed the rinks down,” he said.
“I worked on them hard to try and get them quicker, but they were running more 15 and a half seconds. I mowed it three days in a row, it wasn’t as if I didn’t try.”
Asked what the main message was following the triumph, Sutcliffe said the club’s Scotsman was quick to quip when the next win over Golf would come.
“(Andy Houston) popped up and said in his thick Scottish accent, ‘next time we beat them it will be in the final’.”