You may have only started bowling indoors within the last year or so and this summer you’ve heard players at your club mention and seen them playing in a competition called The Fantastic Fives. But what is this competition?
The Fantastic Fives is a National competition run by the EIBA in the summer months to enable bowlers who don’t play outdoors a chance to play in a competition, with the possibility of winning a National Title at the end of it. Each club can enter many teams, but only 5 players can play in any one game, although squads can be up to 14 players (7 men and 7 women). There are 4 games of shortened length, a singles, pairs, triples and fours, and 2 points are scored for each game you win. Teams must comprise of 2 men and 3 ladies, or 3 men and 2 ladies.
So as you can see, it’s a great chance for those clubs which have a good number of summer bowlers to participate in competition against other clubs. So let’s take a closer look.
Table of Contents
The disciplines in The Fantastic Fives
As stated above, there are four disciplines in the Fantastic Fives – singles, pairs, triples and fours. These are set in two sessions, so all players are playing at the same time.
Singles
The singles is one of the two games that is played first, with the remaining players making up the fours. It is one from each club against each other, playing all four bowls, for 12 ends. At the completion of the 12 ends the score is taken and whoever is ahead wins 2 points towards the overall score.
Pairs
Pairs is one of the second sessions games, along with the triples. So you have a lead and a skip from each team, and they each bowl 3 woods (6 per team), for 10 ends. Again, the total score is taken at the end and 2 points awarded to the winning team.
Triples
The triples is played alongside the pairs. Each player has 2 bowls this time, again 6 woods per team, and this too is for 10 ends. Therefore in theory the games should finish at roughly the same time, although with skips visiting the head and measuring, this will not always be the case. Again, 2 points for the winning team.
Fours
The fours is played first, at the same time as the singles. this is the shortest at just 8 ends, with each player playing 2 bowls per ends. With 2 points awarded to the winning team also, this shows that there are 8 points in total for the game.
Is the Fantastic Fives a knockout competition?
The Fantastic Fives starts out on a league basis, so each club will get to play at least 2 other clubs locally. With games played both home and away, that’s a minimum of 4 games, depending on the size of your group.
The top 2 in each group will qualify, with the winners playing a runners up team from another group, and vice versa. So to finish top of your initial group should mean a better chance of success, especially with home advantage in the next round.
After these play offs, you reach the regional finals, where undoubtedly there will be opposition from further away. These games should be played at a neutral venue, approximately half-way.
Picking your teams
One of the benefits of having a squad of up to 14 players is that you can cover player’s holidays easier. In the summer months we all like to get out and about a bit more and enjoy the great British summer (hopefully…), so sometimes finding 5 players that can play on a given date is not necessarily easy. especially if you find that you have husbands and wives in the same team – if one is away, then the other probably will be too!
However, there are wider things to think about. Have you got a decent singles player available? If so, do you have someone else who is capable of skipping the Fours? Do you try and bank on winning 1 or 2 of the disciplines by strengthening them, but leaving the other disciplines a little weaker? It all adds to the interest of the competition.
It’s important to try and give as many people in your squad the best chance of getting a few games, so that they feel part of the squad, whilst still maintaining the best chance of qualifying. Therefore you may want to register a smaller squad, but then you could find yourself potentially in trouble.
If you cannot field a full 5 players then you forfeit the match, losing 0-8 and each discipline being awarded a 0-5 scoreline. With home teams offering two dates, obviously you may not be in control very easily, so unless you have a fully committed team then you will be best advised to register more players than you think you need.
The Angel and the Fantastic Fives
My own club has supported this initiative by the EIBA since the early days. At first, we entered but were hampered by opposing teams offering us weekday daytimes once they realised that the majority of our team were workers. However thankfully the EIBA have now stipulated that one weekend and one weekday evening must be offered so as to be fair to all teams and allow workers to play in this competition without fear of being punished.
This year (2022) the Angel have 3 teams in different groups – the Anancondas, the Aztecs and the Alligators! You’ll see that other clubs also have teams with different names, and this just adds to the fun of the competition.
Conclusion – what is the Fantastic Fives?
As we have seen, the Fantastic Fives is an EIBA organised competition giving players who choose to play indoors in the summer a chance of competitive play during the summer months. With most competitive players still playing outdoors, it gives a great opportunity to those players that may get overlooked for the big competitions in the winter a months to test their skills against other clubs in a competitive format.
With a great but unusual format of play, it also brings some differences to how teams are selected and which players play each discipline, which also adds to the excitement of the competition.