BACK in my Commonwealth Games selector days it was something of an irritation when the island’s bowling fraternity put forward just about anyone for selection.

If the best players were not available, their view was that retired Charlie Goanywhere could slot in and should do.

His diary was free, they’d saved up a few bob and fancied a bowls holiday.

The Commonwealth Games, we argued, should not be a holiday.

There was a degree of pomposity about their attitude borne out of successes around the world over many years.

They were, after all, BOWLS and on the world stage they could beat anyone on their day.

But we selectors didn’t give in and it did not make us particularly popular, but, a few years on, the Games selection process is, at least in this seemingly most gentle of sports with its sprinkling of silent assassins, a lot tighter and, in Delhi, Guernsey is underlying its prowess amid the best of the Commonwealth.

Our best chance of a medal in India probably lies on the synthetic carpet which gets attacked by white moths come the floodlit evening session, but whether the bowlers achieve it or not they can already look back and see the funny side of turning over mighty England, not once, but twice in successive days. And what a fairy story for the oldest member of our team, Uncle Don, 73 and still showing a decent turn of pace when jogging down the rink to inspect the head.

While once he turned a full-back inside and out for Bels’ 1960 Upton winning side, he is now twisting his bowls through gaps that barely exist.

People get the wrong impression of bowls.

I did until I got to play a couple of summers at Unc’s marvellously hospitable club, the Northern Bowling Association up at Delancey, and a winter indoors at Hougue du Pommier.

I soon learned that never rate your chances on the size, shape, sex or age of your opponent.

Occasionally, I played a decent game and scored a decent win, but I got beaten by a 10-year-old who showed remarkably scant concentration to the game we were playing and may well be a champion in the making, and a grey-haired lady who must be well into the seventies.

Then there are the polite, quiet ones, who keep telling you ‘well played’ and ‘you must be holding shot’ when you know darn well he knows you are not, but is simply too polite to say.

It’s a sort of emotional cheating which gets under the skin because you are unable to tell the individual to go home to his cocoa for fear of being rude. It got to me I can tell you once or twice.

In Delhi, we have a full house of bowlers because our best were able to go, not imitators to the position.

Well played all of them. You have shown you belong on the highest sporting stages.

In general, the Games is moving along nicely for the Sarnian team in the absence of medals.

Strangely, many I come across seem surprised not to see Guernsey on the medals table.

To them I say this is no Island Games. This, in every sport in which we compete in Delhi, is several steps up in class to the biennial experience against populations of similar size, or even smaller, to our own. This is very tough, unless your name is Asafa Powell or Usain Bolt.

Guernsey v. Australia will invariably be a mis-match.

Being in Delhi cannot be entirely a comfortable experience and it sure is not an event for the average.

I still have a sneaky feeling a medal will come our way, but we need to be patient. There is a while to go yet.

COMMONWEALTH work kept yours truly from this week’s sudden burst of Division One football games, but I like what I read.

Four hotly-contested matches with not one match won by more than the odd goal. That’s what we want.